CHRISTIAN POWER IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION=
From
the First French Revolution to the Treaty of Paris, 1789-1856=
Vladimir Moss<= o:p>
© Vladimir Moss, 2005
CONTENTS
Introduction..……̷= 0;…………………………= 230;……….……………...…..4<= o:p>
Part
I. Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1789-1830)
1.
The West: The Man-God
Arises..…..…….……..…………=
;...…………7
The French Revolution: (1) The
Constitutional Monarchy – Burke versus Paine – The American
Constitution and Slavery - Illuminism – The French Revolution: (2) The
Jacobin Terror – The Revolution and Religion – The French
Revolution: (3) Napoleon Bonaparte – Napoleon and Catholicism - La
Grande Nation - The Jews and the Revolution - Napoleon and the Jews =
211;
Napoleon and the Latin American Revolutions – Romanticism and Nationa=
lism
- German Nationalism – The German War of Liberation – The Ideol=
ogy
of Counter-Revolution
2.
The East: The Man-God
Defeated..……….....……………..&#=
8230;…….126
Tsar Paul I – The Annexatio=
n of
Georgia and the Edinoverie – The Murder of Tsar Paul -
The Golden Age of Masonry – Alexander, Napoleon and Speransky - 1812
– The Aftermath of Victory – The Holy Alliance - The Polish
Question - The Jewish Question - The Reaction against Masonry –
Nationalism Moves East - The Greek Revolution – The Serbian Revolution
– The Decembrist Rebellion – St. Seraphim of Sarov
Part II. Liberalism and Autocracy
(1830-1856)
3. The West: The Dual
Revolution….………….…………=
……………218
Liberty, History and Historicism - Art=
and
Revolution: (1) Byronism – Art and Revolution: (2) The July Days R=
11;
The Polish Question – Liberalism and Free Trade – The Irish Fam=
ine
– The British Empire - De Tocqueville on America – Mill on Libe=
rty
– Victorian Religion and Morality - English Self-Help – French
Socialism – German Historicism – Hegel’s Political Philos=
ophy
- The Spectre of Communism: (1) Heinrich Heine – The Spectre of
Communism: (2) Karl Marx - 1848 – Emperor Napoleon III - The World as
Will: Schopenhauer – Nature as Will: Darwin
4. The East: The Gendarme of
Europe………………..………R=
30;……..339
Introduction: Instinct and
Consciousness – Tsar Nicholas I – Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov:
The Struggle against Westernism - Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow: Church a=
nd
State – The Old Ritualists Acquire a Hierarchy – The Russian Ch=
urch
and the Anglicans - The Autocephalous Church of Greece – Leontiev on =
Two
Kinds of Nationalism – The Kollyvades Movement - Russian Hegelianism -
Russia and Europe: (1) Chaadaev vs. Pushkin – Russia and Europe: (2)
Belinsky vs. Gogol – Russia and Europe: (3) Herzen vs. Khomiakov R=
11;
Russia and Europe: (4) Kireevsky - Russia and Europe: (5) Dostoyevsky ̵=
1;
Kireevsky on Autocracy – Tiutchev on Autocracy - The Crimean War R=
11;
Hieroschemamonk Hilarion on Autocracy
INTRODUCTION
I will give him
power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as when
earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I Myself have received power fro=
m My
Father; and I will give him the morning star.
Revelation 2.26-27.
This book represents a continuati=
on
of my earlier books, The Mystery of Christian Power (to 1453) and
Christian Power in the Age of Reason (1453-1789). It follows the same t=
heme
of the struggle between Christian political power and its enemies into the =
age
of revolution – that is, the age beginning with=
the
storming of the Bastille in 1789 and ending with the Crimean War of 1854-18=
56. Of course, the revolution neither
began nor ended in this period. But it may be called the revolutionary age =
par
excellence insofar as it
presented all the main ideas of the revolution in their classical French ex=
pression,
and provided the classic themes and symbolism of the later, and still great=
er
Russian revolution.
&nb=
sp;
The book is divided into two parts, with each part further subdivided
into chapters on East and West on the model of my earlier books. In the fir=
st
part, we see the first French revolution, its continuation and
internationalisation under Napoleon I, and its defeat and seeming reversal =
in
the period of the Holy Alliance. The second part continues the story of the
French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, and their offshoots in other European
countries, while outlining the development of political and economic libera=
lism
in England and America. In the East, meanwhile, we see Russia, “the
Gendarme of Europe”, both administering the decisive blow to Napoleon=
I,
and, in its suppression of the Polish and Hungarian uprisings, ensuring that
the revolution will not spread to Eastern Europe for the time being. Howeve=
r,
Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War at the hands of England, France and
Turkey marks the end of the Holy Alliance and the first international attem=
pt
to contain the revolution, which bodes badly for truly Christian statehood
– indeed, for legitimate statehood in general - in the coming age.
&nb=
sp;
As in my earlier books, I have tried to look beyond the political and
economic events to the spiritual events that are the real causes of history.
For, as Fr. Seraphim Rose said: “The real cause is the soul and God:
whatever God is doing and whatever the soul is doing. These two things
actualise the whole of history; and all the external events – what tr=
eaty
was signed, or the economic reasons for the discontent of the masses, and so
forth – are totally secondary. In fact, if you look at modern history=
, at
the whole revolutionary movement, it is obvious that it is not the economics
that is the governing factor, but various ideas which get into people’=
;s
souls about actually building paradise on earth. Once that idea gets there,
then fantastic things are done, because this is a spiritual thing. Even tho=
ugh
it is from the devil, it is on a spiritual level, that is where actual hist=
ory
is made…”[1]
&nb=
sp;
In pursuit of this, the spiritual meaning of history I owe an especi=
al
debt to Fr. Seraphim Rose, Adam Zamoyski, Lev Alexandrovich Tikhomirov,
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, the Russian Slavophile philosophers and
Constantine Nikolaevich Leontiev.
&nb=
sp;
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God,
have mercy on us!
May 21 / June 3, 2005.
Holy Equals-to-the-Apostles
Constantine and Helena.
East House, Beech Hill, Mayford,
Woking, England.
PART I. REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION
(1789-1830)
1. THE WEST: THE MAN-GOD ARISES
Lo, thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is
restor’d;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:=
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curta=
in
fall;
And Universal Darkness buries All.
Alexander Pope, Dunciad.
The human I, wishing to depend only on
itself, not recognising and not accepting any other law besides its own will
– in a word, the human I, taking the place of God, - does not, of cou=
rse,
constitute something new among men. But such has it become when raised to t=
he
status of a political and social right, and when it strives, by virtue of t=
his
right, to rule society. This is the new phenomenon which acquired the name =
of
the French revolution in 1789.
F.I. Tiutchev, Russia and the Revol=
ution
(1848).
The
nation, this collective organism, is just as inclined to deify itself as the
individual man. The madness of pride grows in this case in the same
progression, as every passion becomes inflamed in society, being refracted =
in
thousands and millions of souls.
Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky) =
of New
York.[2]
After the Humanist-Protes=
tant
revolution of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the English revolution=
of
the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment Programme of the eighteenth
century, the French revolution of 1789 marks the fourth major turning-point=
in
Western life and thought. In some countries – England, for example, a=
nd
still more America - some of the less radical ideas of the French revolution
were already being put into effect, at least partially, well before 1789; w=
hile
in others – Russia and China, for example – they did not achieve
dominance until the twentieth century. Eventually, however, the French revo=
lutionary
ideals of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” and “the Rig=
hts
of Man”, combined with an essentially secularist and utilitarian atti=
tude
to religion, became the dominant ideology, not only of Europe and North
America, but of the whole world. For, as Eric Hobsbawn writes, “alone=
of
all the contemporary revolutions, the French was ecumenical. Its armies set=
out
to revolutionize the world; its ideas actually did so.”[3]
The period 1789-=
1815
can be compared, for its profound impact on the destinies of the world, only
with the period 1914-45. Both periods are dominated by a national revolution
with enormous international ramifications – the French in the earlier
period, the Russian in the later – and by international war on a
previously unprecedented scale. In both periods the main victors were an
Anglo-Saxon nation (Britain in the earlier period, America in the later), on
the one hand, and Russia (Tsarist Russia in the earlier period, Soviet Russ=
ia
in the later), on the other. At the end of each period Russia became the
dominant political power on the continent of Europe, while the Anglo-Saxon
nation became the dominant power outside Europe, going on to dominate the w=
orld
economically through its exploitation of important scientific and technolog=
ical
discoveries.
The French revol=
ution,
like its English forerunner, went through several phases, each of which on =
its
own was profoundly influential outside the borders of France. The first was=
the
constitutional monarchy (1789-92). The second was the Jacobin terror (1792-=
94).
The third (after the interregnum of the Directory) was the Napoleonic
dictatorship and empire (1799-1815). Just as the English revolution had its
proto-communist elements, which, however, failed in the end, so did the Fre=
nch
(Babeuf’s failed coup of 1796). Just as the upshot of the English
revolution was to transfer power from the king to the landowning aristocrac=
y,
so the upshot of the French revolution was to transfer power from the king =
and
the aristocrats to the bourgeoisie – a trend which came to dominate t=
he
whole of Western Europe in the course of the nineteenth century.
From a sociologi=
cal
point of view, France in 1789 had not changed in essence since the eleventh
century; it was an agrarian, hierarchical society consisting of “the
three Estates”: those who prayed (the clergy), those who fought (the
nobility) and those who worked (the rest, mainly peasants, but including
lawyers and intellectuals). The ideas of the Enlightenment and Masonry had
infected a narrow stratum of the more educated classes. But the mass of the
population lived and thought as they had lived and thought for centuries.
It is customary =
to
explain the French revolution as the product of corrupt political, social a=
nd
economic conditions, and in particular of the vast gap in wealth and power
between the ancien régime and the people. Discontent with soc=
ial
and economic injustices undoubtedly played a large part in fuelling this
horrific atheist and anti-theist outburst. But it was not the king who was
primarily to blame for these injustices. In the years 1745-89 he and his
ministers made numerous attempts at economic reform and a more equitable
redistribution of the tax burden. But they were always foiled by opposition=
at
court and in the Parlements from the aristocrats, who paid no tax. T=
hus
when five of his minister Turgot’s Six Edicts were rejected by the Pa=
ris Parlement
in 1776, Louis XVI observed: “I see well that there is no-one here bu=
t M.
Turgot and myself who love the people.”[4] This
prompted de Tocqueville’s words: “The social order destroyed by=
a
revolution is almost always better than that which preceded it; and experie=
nce
shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is generally that=
in
which it sets about reform. Only great genius can save a ruler who takes on=
the
task of improving the lot of his subjects after long oppression…̶=
1;[5]
The aristocrats
claimed that their opposition was an expression of Montesquieu’s doct=
rine
of the necessity of checks on executive power. In fact, however, they were
trying to replace a royal “despotism” with their own aristocrat=
ic
one. For, as Hobsbawm writes, “the Revolution began as an aristocratic
attempt to recapture the state.”[6] And =
here,
as so often in history, the “despotism” of one man standing abo=
ve
the political fray turned out to be less harmful to the majority of the
population than the despotism of an oligarchical clique pursuing only one c=
lass
or factional interest. Indeed, the problem with the French monarchy was not=
its
excessive strength, but its weakness, its inability to impose its will on t=
he
privileged class.
However, there w=
as
much more to the Revolution than a conflict between king and nobility, lett=
ing
in the Third Estate that destroyed them both. The essential conflict was
between two ideas of the origin of authority: between the idea that it comes
from above – ultimately, from God, and the idea that it comes =
from
below – ultimately from what the Masons called “Nature”. =
King
Louis XVI stated the Christian
principle: “I have taken the firm and sincere decision to remain loft=
ily,
publicly and generously faithful to Him Who holds in His hand kings and
kingdoms. I can only be great through Him, because in Him alone is greatnes=
s,
glory, majesty and power; and because I am destined one day to be his living
image on earth.”[7] This
firm, but humble statement of the doctrine, not so much of the Divine ri=
ght
of kings, as of their Divine dependence on the King of kings, was op=
posed
by the satanic pride of the revolutionary faith. “The Revolution is
neither an act nor a fact,” said De Mounier. “It is a political
doctrine which claims to found society on the will of man instead of foundi=
ng
it on the will of God, which puts the sovereignty of human reason in the pl=
ace
of the Divine law.[8]=
This anti-theist=
ic
character of the French Revolution was confirmed by the great Anglo-Irish
parliamentarian, Edmund Burke, wrote: “We cannot, if we would, delude
ourselves about the true state of this dreadful contest. It is a religio=
us
war. It includes in its object undoubtedly every other interest of soci=
ety
as well as this; but this is the principal and leading feature. It is throu=
gh
this destruction of religion that our enemies propose the accomplishment of=
all
their other views. The French Revolution, impious at once and fanatical, ha=
d no
other plan for domestick power and foreign empire. Look at all the proceedi=
ngs
of the National Assembly from the first day of declaring itself such in the
year 1789, to this very hour, and you will find full half of their business=
to
be directly on this subject. In fact it is the spirit of the whole. The
religious system, called the Constitutional Church, was on the face of the
whole proceeding set up only as a mere temporary amusement to the people, a=
nd
so constantly stated in all their conversations, till the time should come,
when they might with safety cast off the very appearance of all religion
whatsoever, and persecute Christianity throughout Europe with fire and
sword… This religious war is not a controversy between sect and sect =
as
formerly, but a war against all sects and all religions…”[9]
So the real ques=
tion
that the Revolution sought to answer was not political or economic, but
theological or ideological, not: who pays the taxes?, but: who rules the
universe?
It is striking h=
ow
similar was the sequence of events in the French Revolution to that in its
English predecessor. Just as the English revolution started with the
king’s compelling need to seek money for his war against the Scots, so
the French revolution started with a severe financial crisis caused by the
king’s intervention in the American War of Independence. And just as =
the
English parliament’s refusal to accede to the king’s request led
successively to civil war, the overthrowing of the State Church, the execut=
ion
of the king, a radicalisation of the country to a state of near-communist
revolution, foreign wars (in Scotland and Ireland), and finally a military
dictatorship under Cromwell that restored order while preserving many of the
fruits of the revolution, so the refusal, first of the Nobles’ Assemb=
ly
and then of the Estates General to accede to the French king’s request
led to a constitutional monarchy, the overthrowing of the State Church, the
execution of the king, increased radicalisation and the Great Terror, wars =
with
both internal and external enemies, and finally a military dictatorship und=
er
Napoleon that restored order while consolidating many of the results of the
revolution.
But the French
Revolution went much further than the English in the number of its victims,=
in
the profundity of its effects, not only on France but also on almost every
country in Europe, and in its unprecedented radicalism, even anti-theism. It
really began on June 17, 1789, when the Third Estate gathered a so-called
National Assembly, of which they declared: “To it, and it alone, belo=
ngs
the right to interpret and express the general will of the nation. Between =
the
throne and this Assembly there can exist no veto, no power of negation.R=
21;[10] Thi=
s,
writes Davies, “was the decisive break. Three days later, locked out =
of
their usual hall, the deputies met on the adjacent tennis court, le jeu =
de
paume, and swore an oath never to disband until France was given a
Constitution. ‘Tell your master,’ thundered Count Mirabeau to t=
he
troops sent to disperse them, ‘that we are here by the will of the
people, and will not disperse before the threat of bayonets.’
“Pandemoni=
um
ensued. At court, the King’s conciliatory ministers fell out with the=
ir
more aggressive colleagues. On 11 July [the chief minister] Jacques Necker,=
who
had received a rousing welcome at the opening of the Estates General, was
dismissed. Paris exploded. A revolutionary headquarters coalesced round the=
Duc
d’Orléans at the Palais Royal. The gardens of the Palais Royal
became a notorious playground of free speech and free love. Sex shows spran=
g up
alongside every sort of political harangue. ‘The exile of Necker,R=
17;
screamed the fiery orator Camille Desmoulins fearing reprisals, ‘is t=
he
signal for another St. Bartholomew of patriots.’ The royal garrison w=
as
won over. On the 13th a Committee of Public Safety[11] was
created, and 48,000 men were enrolled in a National Guard under General Laf=
ayette.
Bands of insurgents tore down the hated barrières or internal
customs posts in the city, and ransacked the monastery of Saint-Lazare in t=
he
search for arms. On the 14th, after 30,000 muskets were removed =
from
the Hôtel des Invalides, the royal fortress of the Bastille was besie=
ged.
There was a brief exchange of gunfire, after which the governor capitulated.
The King had lost his capital.”[12]
Power appeared t=
o have
passed from the king to the National Assembly and the Third Estate; but alr=
eady
at this early stage of the revolution (as in February, 1917 in Russia), real
power was neither with the king nor with any of the Estates, but with the m=
ob
– or rather, with those who incited and controlled the mob. Thus on J=
uly
20 Arthur Young wrote: “I hear nothing of their [the Assembly’s]
moving from Versailles; if they stay there under the control of an armed mo=
b,
they must make a government that will please the mob; but they will, I supp=
ose,
be wise enough to move to some central town, Tours, Blois or Orléans,
where their deliberations may be free. But the Parisian spirit of commotion
spreads quickly…”
So quickly, in f=
act,
that a year later Antoine, Comte de Rivarol could write: “Three milli=
on
armed peasants, from one end of the kingdom to the other, stop travellers,
check their papers, and bring the victims back to Paris; the town hall cann=
ot
protect them from the fury of the patriotic hangman; the National Assembly =
in
raising Paris might well have been able to topple the throne, but it cannot=
save
a single citizen. The time will come… when the National Assembly will=
say
to the citizen army: ‘You have saved me from authority, but who will =
save
me from you?’ When authority has been overthrown, its power passes
inevitably to the lowest classes of society… Such is today the state =
of
France and its capital.”[13]
The success of t=
he
Revolution was assured by the weakness of the King; for when “he who
restrains” stops restraining, “then everything is permittedR=
21;.
Doyle writes: “News of the king’s surrender to popular resistan=
ce
broke all restraints. His acquiescence in the defeat of the privileged orde=
rs
was taken as a signal for all his subjects to take their own measures again=
st
public enemies. The prolonged political crisis has spawned countless wild r=
umours
of plots to thwart the patriotic cause by starving the people. Monastic and
noble granaries, reputedly bulging with the proceeds of the previous
season’s rents, dues, and tithes, seemed obvious evidence of their
owners’ wicked intentions. Equally suspicious were urban merchants
scouring country markets far beyond their usual circuits to provide bread f=
or
hungry townsmen. Besides, the roads were thronged with unprecedented number=
s of
men seeking work as a result of the slump. Farmers had good reason to dread=
the
depredations of bands of travelling vagrants, and now took little persuading
that the kingdom was alive with brigands in aristocratic pay. It was just a
year since the notorious storms of July 1788, and as a promising harvest be=
gan
to ripen country people were particularly nervous. All this produced the
‘Great Fear’, a massive panic that swept whole provinces in the
last weeks of July and left only the most peripheral regions untouched.
Peasants assembled, armed themselves, and prepared to fight off the ruthless
hirelings of aristocracy. Seen from a distance, such armed bands were often
taken for brigands themselves, and so the panic spread. “In many a=
reas
villagers did not wait for the marauders to arrive. Then it would be too la=
te.
They were determined to make sure of aristocratic defeat by striking
pre-emptively. After all, they would only anticipating what the Assembly was
bound to decree. As one country priest explained, ‘When the inhabitan=
ts
heard that everything was going to be different they began to refuse to pay
both tithes and dues, considering themselves so permitted, they said, by the
new law to come.’”[14] On August 4, und=
er
pressure of the peasant revolt, the National or Constituent Assembly declar=
ed
that it “abolishes the feudal system in its entirety”. It also
proclaimed “King Louis XVI Restorer of French Liberty”… <=
o:p> In his pamphlet =
What
is the Third Estate? published in that year, Abbé Sieyès
asked: What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been in the politi=
cal
order up to the present? Nothing. What does it demand? To become
something…” Now the Third Estate was something. Rarely, if ever, in political hist=
ory
has a single act had such a huge and immediate effect (the abdication of the
Tsar in February, 1917 is perhaps the only parallel). On August 26, the
Assembly passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which
listed the following “natural, inalienable and sacred rights”: =
“’I.=
Men
are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can only =
be
founded on public utility. II. The purpose =
of
every political association is the preservation of the natural and
unprescriptible rights of men. These rights are liberty, property, and safe=
ty
from, and resistance to, oppression. III. The princip=
le of
all sovereignty lies in the nation. No body of men, and no individual, can
exercise authority which does not emanate directly therefrom. IV. Liberty cons=
ists
in the ability to do anything which does not harm others. V. The Law can o=
nly
forbid actions which are injurious to society…
VI. The Law is t=
he
expression of the General Will… It should be the same for all, whethe=
r to
protect or to punish.
VII. No man can =
be
accused, arrested, or detained except in those instances which are determin=
ed
by law.
VIII. The Law sh=
ould
only establish punishments which are strictly necessary. No person should be
punished by retrospective legislation.
IX. No man [is]
presumed innocent till found guilty…
X. No person sho=
uld be
troubled for his opinions, even religious ones, so long as their manifestat=
ion
does not threaten public order.
XI. The free
communication of thoughts and opinions is one of men’s most precious
rights. Every citizen, therefore, can write, speak, and publish freely, sav=
ing
only the need to account for abuses defined by law.
XII. A public fo=
rce is
required to guarantee the [above] rights. It is instituted for the benefit =
of
all, not for the use of those to whom it is entrusted.
=
; XIII. Public taxation =
is
indispensable for the upkeep of the forces and the administration. It shoul=
d be
divided among all citizens without distinction, according to their abilitie=
s.
XIV. Citizens=
230;
have the right to approve the purposes, levels, and extent of taxation.
XV. Society has =
the
right to hold every public servant to account.
XVI. Any society=
in
which rights are not guaranteed nor powers separated does not have a
constitution.
XVII. Property b=
eing a
sacred and inviolable right, no person can be deprived of it, except by pub=
lic
necessity, legal process, and just compensation.’
“Social
convention held that the ‘Rights of Man’ automatically subsumed=
the
rights of women. But several bold souls, including Condorcet, disagreed,
arguing that women had simply been neglected.[15] In =
due
course the original Declaration was joined by new ideas, notably about human
rights in the social and economic sphere. Article XXI of the revised
Declaration of June 1793 stated: ’Public assistance is a sacred
obligation [dette]. Society owes subsistence to unfortunate citizens,
whether in finding work for them, or in assuring the means of survival of t=
hose
incapable of working.’ Slavery was outlawed in 1794. Religious tolera=
tion
was guaranteed.”[16]
In October=
a
great crowd of hungry women brought the king from Versailles to Paris.
Thereafter the forging of a new Constitution that would include limited pow=
ers
for the king went ahead relatively peacefully. However, the king.could not =
make
up his mind whether to accept or reject the Revolution[17]; and
this vacillation, combined with his arrest at Varennes on June 21, 1791 whi=
le
attempting to flee the country, gradually undermined what remained of his
authority.[18]
For, as Hobsbawn points out, “traditional kings who abandon their peo=
ples
lose the right to royalty".[19] In a
similar situation in 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was given the opportunity to fl=
ee
by the Provisional Government, but chose not to…
Moreover, while =
the
Assembly passed a large number of laws, it completely failed to solve the
problems which had propelled it to power – the financial insolvency of
the country. It simply printed money which rapidly deteriorated in value,
fuelling inflation, and in 1791 collected only 249 livres in taxes against
822.7 livres expended.[20]
In spite of these
problems, the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, witnessed =
an
extraordinary celebration of the revolution in which even the king took par=
t.
Zamoyski writes:
“It was to be a kind of Rousseauist troth-pledging, at which the nati=
on
would come together and symbolically constitute itself as a body,
simultaneously paying homage to itself as such – the first of many ac=
ts
of political onanism. Bailly [the mayor of Paris] suggested that the solemn=
ity
should take the form of a ‘National Federation’, with delegatio=
ns
from every corner of France meeting in Paris while those from surrounding
villages congregated in every provincial town. Lafayette steered the whole
exercise into the military sphere, substituting companies of National Guards
from every part of the country for civilian delegates.
“The capit=
al was
to be decked out in a fitting manner to greet those making their long
pilgrimage. Half the population of Paris spent three days in the pouring ra=
in
putting up triumphant arches and decorations. The Champ-de-Mars was transfo=
rmed
into a vast elliptical arena surrounded by grass banks on which seats were
erected for spectators. At the end nearest the École Militaire there=
was
a stand draped in the tricolor for the members of the Assembly and important
guests. At the opposite end, nearest the River Seine, was the entrance, thr=
ough
a triple triumphal arch in the Roman style. Between the two stood a podium =
with
a throne for the king and seats for the royal family, and, towering above
everything else, a great square plinth with steps on all four sides, on whi=
ch
stood an altar.
“The morni=
ng of
14 July was wetter than ever, and the feet of the 300,000 Parisians soon tu=
rned
the Champ-de-Mars into a quagmire. This did not make the event any easier to
manage, but good humour triumphed. As they waited in the rain, people made
jokes about being baptized in the national rain, and groups from different
parts of the country showed off regional dances to each other.
“The king =
and
queen arrived at noon, but it took a long time for them to be settled into
their stand. Then came a march-past by 50,000 National Guards. It was not u=
ntil
four in the afternoon that the Bishop of Autun, Charles Maurice de Talleyra=
nd-Périgord,
attended by four hundred priests wearing the tricolor, began to celebrate m=
ass.
The altar at which he officiated was not a traditional liturgical mensa<=
/u>,
but a circular neoclassical affair redolent of burnt offerings in ancient R=
ome.
It was not the altar of God, on which sacrifice was offered up to the Almig=
hty,
it was the autel de la patrie, on which citizens pledged their devot=
ion
to the motherland.
“Lafayette=
was
much in evidence all day on his white charger, and when the mass was over, =
he
took centre stage. As if by a miracle, the weather cleared and the sun came
out, bathing the whole scene in a soft luminous aura. While trumpets blared,
Lafayetter ascended the steps of the altar. As he began to swear loyalty to=
the
king, the nation and the law, he drew his sword with a flourish and laid it=
on
the altar. Fifty thousand National Guardsmen then repeated the same oath,
followed by the king. Next came the singing of the Te Deum specially
composed by François Gossec, during which people of all stations
embraced tearfully in a hundred thousand acts of national fraternity.
Lafayetter was carried by the crowd to his white horse, on which he
majestically left the field, with people kissing his hands and his
clothers…
“The F&eci=
rc;te
de la Fédération represented a reconciliation of all the peop=
le
living in France, and their betrothal as one nation. It mimicked
Rousseau’s vision of the Corsicans coming together to found their nat=
ion
through a common pledge. The festival was also a recognition that the Marqu=
is
de Lafayette and the humblest peasant in France were brothers, both as memb=
ers
of a biological family and through the ideological kinship represented by t=
he
oath. At the same time, the celebration exposed a new reality. It showed ho=
w far
the concept of nationhood had altered from the Enlightenment vision of a
congeries living in consensus to something far more metaphysical and inhere=
ntly
divine…”[21]
Burke versus Paine
The ideas of the
French revolution posed a great threat to the British, who prided themselve=
s on
being the home of liberty, but who saw that French revolutionary
“liberty” would speedily destroy their own. Already the America=
ns
had shown that libertarianism and empire made an uncomfortable fit; and the=
fit
would look still worse in India and Ireland as the French ideas filtered
through. Moreover, the first effects of the industrial revolution on the
industrial poor, and of the “dark, satanic mills” on
England’s “green and pleasant land”, threatened to arouse
revolutionary passions among the poor.
“’Two
causes, and only two, will rouse a peasantry to rebellion,’ opined Ro=
bert
Southey, a radical turned Tory: ‘intolerable oppression, or religious
zeal’. But that moderately comforting scenario no longer applied:
‘A manufacturing poor is more easily instigated to revolt: they have =
no
local attachments… they know enough of what is passing in the politic=
al
world to think themselves politicians’. England’s rulers must p=
ay
heed: ‘If the manufacturing system continues to be extended, I believe
that revolution inevitably must come, and in its most fearful
shape’.”[22]
Already in the y=
ears
1778-83 a debate had begun on whether the ideas of the founding philosopher=
of
English liberalism, John Locke, had been right after all. In 1783 the Bapti=
st
Noel Turner wondered whether the “present national propensity” =
was
the deployment of Locke on behalf of the “many-headed majesty” =
of
“king-people”. And in the same year Josiah Tucker publish his &=
#8220;On
the Evil Consequences Arising from the Propagation of Locke’s Democra=
tic
Principles”. Tucker’s disciple Soame Jenyns declared that he had
refuted the Lockean philosophy of the Whigs, writing:
I controvert these five positions
Which Whigs pretend are the conditions=
Of civil rule and liberty;
That men are equal born – and fr=
ee
–
That kings derive their lawful sway
All from the people’s yea and nay
–
That compact is the only ground,
On which a prince his rights can found
–
Lastly, I scout that idle notion,
That government is put in motion,
And stopt again, like clock or chime,<= o:p>
Just as we want them to keep time.[23]<=
/a>
This debate beca=
me
more urgent as the atrocities of the French revolution became known. Could =
the
ideas of the urbane and civilised Locke really have led to such barbarism?
William Jones thought so. Writing in 1798, he said that “with Mr. Loc=
ke
in his hand”, that “mischievous infidel Voltaire” had set
about destroying Christianity. And Locke was “the oracle of those who
began and conducted the American Revolution, which led to the French
Revolution; which will lead (unless God in his mercy interfere) to the total
overthrow of religion and government in this kingdom, perhaps in the whole
Christian world.”[24]
However, the most
famous ideological attack on the French revolution came from Edmund Burke, =
who
had adopted a liberal position on America and Ireland[25], and
who now tried to defend English liberalism while attacking French radicalis=
m.
His Reflexions on the Revolution in France (1790) foresaw saw that t=
he
French revolution would bring in its train, not freedom, but tyranny - and
precisely because of its populist character. For “the tyranny of a
multitude,” he wrote, “is a multiplied tyranny”.[26] Bur=
ke
agreed with the Catholic monarchist Joseph de Maistre in calling the revolu=
tion
“satanic”. And, as we have seen, he called the war that broke o=
ut
between revolutionary France and Britain in 1793 “a religious warR=
21;.
For truly, the war between the revolution and its opponents was a
religious war, a war between two opposed ideas of who rules human society: =
God
or the people.
Burke laid great
emphasis on the importance of tradition and the organic forms of social lif=
e,
which was important at a time when the rage was all for the destruction of
everything that was old and venerable. In this respect (although not in oth=
ers)
he went against one of the main presuppositions of the English social contr=
act
theorists, following rather in the line of thought of the German
Counter-Enlightenment thinkers Hamann and Herder.
As Berlin writes:
“Burke’s famous onslaughts on the principles of the French
revolutionaries was founded upon the selfsame appeal to the myriad strands =
that
bind human beings into a historically hallowed whole, contrasted with the
utilitarian model of society as a trading-company held together by contract=
ual
obligations, the world of ‘sophisters, oeconomists, and
calculators’ who are blind and deaf to the unanalysable relationships
that make a family, a tribe, a nation, a movement, any association of human
beings held together by something more than a quest for mutual advantage, o=
r by
force, or by anything that is not mutual love, loyalty, common history, emo=
tion
and outlook.”[27]
Society exists o=
ver
several generations, so why, asked Burke, should only one generation’s
interests be respected in drawing up the social contract? For, as Roger Scr=
uton
writes, interpreting his thought, “the social contract prejudices the
interests of those who are not alive to take part in it: the dead and the
unborn. Yet they too have a claim, maybe an indefinite claim, on the resour=
ces
and institutions over which the living so selfishly contend. To imagine soc=
iety
as a contract among its living members, is to offer no rights to those who =
go
before and after. But when we neglect those absent souls, we neglect everyt=
hing
that endows law with its authority, and which guarantees our own survival. =
We
should therefore see the social order as a partnership, in which the dead a=
nd
the unborn are included with the living.”[28]
“Every
people,” writes L.A. Tikhomirov, “is, first of all, a certain
historical whole, a long row of consecutive generations, living over hundre=
ds
or thousands of years in a common life handed down by inheritance. In this =
form
a people, a nation, is a certain socially organic phenomenon with more or l=
ess
clearly expressed laws of inner development… But political intriguers=
and
the democratic tendency does not look at a people in this form, as a
historical, socially organic phenomenon, but simply in the form of a sum of=
the
individual inhabitants of the country. This is the second point of view,
which looks on a nation as a simple association of people united into a sta=
te
because they wanted that, living according to laws which they like, and
arbitrarily changing the laws of their life together when it occurs to
them.”[29]
Burke rejected t=
he
idea that the French Revolution was simply the English Revolution writ larg=
e.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was not a revolution in the new, French sen=
se,
because it left English traditions, including English traditions of liberty,
intact: it “was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws=
and
liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our =
only
security for law and liberty… We wished at the period of the Revoluti=
on,
and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our
forefathers… All the reformations we have hitherto made, have
proceeded upon the principle of reference to antiquity.”[30] In
fact, far from making the people the sovereign power, the English parliamen=
t in
1688 had sworn “in the name of the people” to “most humbly
and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities” to the
Monarchs William and Mary “for ever”. The French Revolution, by
contrast, rejected all tradition. “You had,” he told the French,
“the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be
wished…; but you chose to act as if you have never been moulded into
civil society, and had everything to begin anew. You began ill, because you
began by despising everything that belonged to you.” “Your
constitution, it is true,… suffered waste and dilapidation; but you
possessed in some parts the walls and, in all, the foundations of a noble a=
nd
venerable castle. You might have repaired those walls; you might have built=
on
those old foundations. Your constitution was suspended before it was
perfected.” “Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an ho=
ur,
that prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred
years.”[31]
There was in fact nothing new about the French Revolution. It was just anot=
her
disaster “brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge,
lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal”. The “rights of
man” were just a “pretext” invented by the “wickedn=
ess”
of human nature.[32]
“It was Bu=
rke’s
Reflections,” writes G.P. Gooch, “which overthrew the
supremacy of Locke [for the time being], and formed the starting-point of a
number of schools of thought, agreeing in the rejection of the individualis=
tic
rationalism which had dominated the eighteenth century. The work is not only
the greatest exposition of the philosophic basis of conservatism ever writt=
en,
but a declaration of the principles of evolution, continuity, and solidarit=
y,
which must hold their place in all sound political thinking. Against the
omnipotence of the individual, he sets the collective reason; against the
claims of the present, he sets the accumulated experience of the past; for
natural rights he offers social rights; for liberty he substitutes law. Soc=
iety
is a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those
who are yet to be born.”[33]
Burke, writes Do=
yle,
attributed the fall of the old order “to a conspiracy. On the one hand
were the ‘moneyed interest’, resentful at their lack of esteem =
and
greedy for new profits; on the other, and even more important, were the
so-called philosophers of the Enlightenment, a ‘literary cabal’
committed to the destruction of Christianity by any and every available mea=
ns.
The idea of a philosophic conspiracy was not new. It went back to the only =
one
ever conclusively proved to have existed, the plot of the self-styled
Illuminati to undermine the Church-dominated government of Bavaria. The
Bavarian government published a sensational collection of documents to
illustrate its gravity, and Burke had read it. Although he was not the firs=
t to
attribute events in France to conspiracy of the sort thwarted in Bavaria, t=
he
way he included the idea in the most comprehensive denunciation of the
Revolution yet to appear lent it unprecedented authority. Nor was the
destruction of Christianity and the triumph of atheism the only catastrophe=
he
predicted. Disgusted by the way the ‘Republic of Paris’ and its
‘swinish multitude’ held the government captive, the provinces
would eventually cut loose and France would fall apart. The assignats would
drive out sound coinage and hasten, rather than avert, bankruptcy. The only
possible end to France’s self-induced anarchy would come when ‘=
some
popular general, who understand the art of conciliating the soldiery, and w=
ho
possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon
himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account… the moment in
which that event will happen, the person who really commands the army is yo=
ur
master.’”[34]
Burke’s
Paine admitted t=
hat
Louis XVI had “natural moderation”; but the revolution, he argu=
ed,
was not against people, but against principles – in
particular, the principle of despotism. In any case, he wrote, “[Burk=
e]
is not affected by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He
pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird… His hero or his heroi=
ne
must be a tragedy victim, expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of
misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.”[36]
However, Paine himself was soon to become “a real prisoner of
misery” in a Jacobin dungeon, just one of the hundreds of thousands o=
f people
– including the “naturally moderate” King and vast number=
s of
the poorer classes – far more than the ancien régime had
caused in centuries.
As for the pr=
inciple
of despotism, Paine saw it everywhere: “When despotism has established
itself for ages in a country, as in France, it is not in the person of the =
King
only that it resides. It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nom=
inal
authority; but it is not so in practice, and in fact. It has its standard
everywhere. Every office and department has its despotism, founded upon cus=
tom
and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot. The
original hereditary despotism resident in the person of the King, divides a=
nd
subdivides itself into a thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole =
of
it is acted by deputation. This was the case in France; and against this
species of despotism, proceeding on through an endless labyrinth of office =
till
the source of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of redress. It
strengthens itself by assuming the appearance of duty, and tyrannizes under=
the
pretence of obeying.
“When a man
reflects on the condition which France was in from the nature of her
government, he will see other causes for revolt than those which immediately
connect themselves with the person or character of Louis XVI. There were, i=
f I
may so express it, a thousand despotisms to be reformed in France, which had
grown up under the hereditary despotism of the monarchy, and became so root=
ed
as to be in a great measure independent of it. Between the monarchy, the
parliament, and the church, there was a rivalship of despotism, besi=
des
the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial despotism opera=
ting
everywhere.”[37]
So even parliame=
nt was
despotic! Paine gives himself away here: his real target is not despotism, =
but hierarchy,
every relationship in society which involves the submission of one person to
another. He rejected the role of tradition in politics as radically as Luth=
er
and Calvin had rejected it in theology.
“Every age=
and
generation,” he wrote, “must be as free to act for itself, in
all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and
presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insol=
ent
of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation
property in the generations which are to follow. The parliament or the peop=
le
of 1688, or of any other period, has no more right to dispose of the people=
of
the present day, or to bind or to control those who are to live a hundred o=
r a
thousand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the
purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, t=
hat
are to be accomodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease
with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this wo=
rld,
he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or =
how
its government shall be organized, or how administered…. I am contend=
ing
for the rights of the living, and against their being willed away by=
the
manuscript assumed authority of the dead…
“The error=
of
those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights =
of
man, is, that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the
whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an hundred or a
thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a rule for the present d=
ay.
This is no authority at all. If we travel still farther into antiquity, we
shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if antiqu=
ity
is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be produced, successive=
ly
contradicting each other:
“…If=
the
mere name of antiquity is to govern the affairs of life, the people who are=
to
live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well take us for a preced=
ent,
as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ag=
o.
The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving everything, establish
nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the
divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our inquiries find=
a
resting-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute about the rights o=
f man
had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from the creation, it is to =
this
same source of authority they must have referred, and it is to the same sou=
rce
of authority that we must now refer.
“Though I =
mean
not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion, yet it may be worth
observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam. Why then not tra=
ce
the rights of man to the creation of man? I will answer the question. Becau=
se
there have been upstart governments, thrusting themselves between, and
presumptuously working to un-make man.
“If any
generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which t=
he
world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed;
and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any
authority for doing it, nor can set any up. The illuminating and divine
principle of the equal rights of man, (for it has its origin from the Maker=
of
man) relates, not only to the living individuals, but to generations of men
succeeding each other. Every generation is equal in rights to the generatio=
ns
which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in
rights with his contemporary.”[38]
Paine had a poin=
t.
Arguments based on merely human tradition are relative; one precedent
from antiquity is cancelled out by another. Human tradition needs to be
supported by Divine Tradition – that is, the Tradition handed =
down
from God to His Chosen People and passed on by them from generation to
generation in the Church.
Burke had this p=
roblem
not only in relation to Paine, but also in relation to other contemporary
English radicals. If he claimed that British liberties “were an entai=
led
inheritance peculiar to the inhabitants of the island” and going back=
to
William the Conqueror, “his radical opponents, who were rather less k=
een
on entails, claimed that their rights were derived from the alleged practic=
es
of free-born Englishmen before the days of the ‘Norman
yoke’.”[39] And=
the
precedent his opponents pointed to was both older and more noble; for, as P=
aine
pointed out, if any ruler was a despot and usurper, - that is, a destroy=
er
of tradition - it was William the Conqueror. And he was right: it had been
William who, in 1066, cut off England from the One, True Church in the East=
and
destroyed her traditions, both human and Divine.
Again, since Bur=
ke
accepted the legitimacy of both the English and American revolutions (while
preferring to rest on their least revolutionary moments), he could not atta=
ck
the French revolution from a position of basic principle (for its principles
were not fundamentally different from those of its Anglo-Saxon predecessors=
),
but only because it carried those principles “too far”. But if =
the
principle itself is accepted, who is to say when the application of the
principle has gone “too far”? In any case, both Burke and his
English radical opponents (but not Paine) agreed that the rights they were
talking about “did not rest on principle and had no relevance to
foreigners”[40] - a=
nd
so had no relevance to the French revolution, either.
And yet Burke wa=
s not
defending just the English way of doing things, which was relevant only to
Englishmen (in other of his works he defended the rights of the Irish and t=
he
Indians to keep their own traditions within the British Empire). The French
revolution attacked the very foundation of society – religion.
So in defending =
the
Christian religion Burke was defending a universal principle: “We kno=
w,
and what is better, we feel inwardly[41], th=
at
religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of a=
ll
comfort. In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust of
superstition… that ninety-nine in a hundred of the people of England
would not prefer to impiety… We know, and it is our pride to know, th=
at
man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not
only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. But
if… we should uncover our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian
religion which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great sourc=
e of
civilisation amongst us, and among many other nations, we are apprehensive
(being well aware that the mind will not endure a void) that some uncouth,
pernicious, and degrading superstition might take the place of it.”[42]
The very radical= ism of Paine’s rejection of tradition and hierarchy undermined the validity = of his argument. First, no society can exist without tradition or hierarchy – least of all revolutionary ones, which immediately act to fill the = void they have created. Secondly, if sovereignty resides in the Nation, as Paine affirms, the question arises: what is the Nation if it has to be constantly re-inventing itself, holding nothing from the past as sacred and= starting again from a tabula rasa with every new generation? A Nation defines itself precisely by its continuity over time and over many generations; the= re must be some loyalty to, and preservation of, the past if the Nation is to recognise itself as the same Nation throughout its transformations.<= o:p>
But Paine, true
revolutionary that he was, was as sweeping in his rejection of temporal
tradition as he was of spatial hierarchy. Not surprisingly, therefore, he h=
ad
little time for religion, the main guarantor of both the spatial and the
temporal dimensions of society. “My country is the world,” he
wrote, “and my religion is to do good”.[43] The=
re
was no one, true dogmatic religion for Paine, only conflicting human opinio=
ns
which he made no attempt to evaluate: “With respect to what are called
denominations of religion, if everyone is left to judge of his own religion,
there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong; but if they are to judg=
e of
each other’s religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is
right; and therefore, all the world is right, or all the world is
wrong…”[44]
“Every religion is good that teaches man to be good”. “I =
do
not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Churc=
h,
by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by
any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”[45]
Paine was not
anti-religious as such; but in his attitude to religion there was more than=
a
hint of contempt: “All religions are in their nature kind and benign =
[!],
and united with principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes=
at
first, by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immo=
ral.
Like everything else, they had their beginning; and they proceeded by
persuasion, exhortation, and example. How then is it that they lose their
native mildness, and become morose and intolerant?
“It procee=
ds
from the connexion which Mr. Burke recommends. By engendering the church wi=
th
the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of
breeding up, is produced, called The Church established by Law. It i=
s a
stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother on which it is begotten,
and whom in time it kicks out and destroys.”[46]
On this principl=
e,
Paine should have been very happy in America, where he spent his last years,
insofar as the American Constitution made a complete separation between Chu=
rch
and State. But where there is no persecution from the State, there can stil=
l be
criticism from individuals – indeed, that is their right according to
Paine’s own principles. And the Americans criticised him for his Deist
views, so that Paine spent his last years in loneliness and misery.
For all his
Rousseauist iconoclasm, Paine’s revolutionary zeal was profoundly
non-Rousseauist, Anglo-Saxon and individualist. Society exists, according to
him, for the sake of the individual and his needs, especially his need to be
free from various ills. There is no place in his system for a general
will that is superior to the individual and which forces him to be free =
to
be himself. “Civil power, properly considered as such, is made up of =
the
aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which becomes defecti=
ve
in the individual in point of power, and answers not to his purpose; but wh=
en
collected to a focus, becomes competent to the purpose of every one.”=
[47] In
other words, the State has no special rights over an individual unless he
interferes with the rights of other individuals; it simply exists to service
the individual(s), to help him to do things he would not be able to do on h=
is
own.
Paine was more
influential than Burke, and even the stolid and traditionalist British found
themselves moving along the path that he indicated. Thus, as Hampson points
out, “it was the British who moved towards the attitudes proclaimed by
the French Revolution… After 1832 it was conceded that, irrespective =
of
precedent and tradition, whole categories of Englishmen had a right to
vote.”[48]
Moreover, Paine’s vision of a welfare state outlined in part two of <=
i>The
Rights of Man was to inspire generations of British and American radica=
ls.
And yet, it was =
Burke,
not Paine, who was right on the Revolution…
The
American Constitution and Slavery
The success of t= he American revolution had provided an inspiration for the French revolution in its first phase; and the French revolution in its turn influenced the furth= er development of the American. The debate between Burke and Paine had its analogues in the controversies among the Founding Fathers. Some, such as Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, still looked towards the more conservative and authoritarian British model of democracy, in spite of the experience of the War of Independence; while others, such as Thomas Jeffers= on, drew inspiration from the French revolution even in its later, Jacobin phas= e in his almost anarchical drive to “rekindle the old spirit of 1776”= ;.
Thus Hamilton sa= id to the Constitutional Convention in 1787: “I believe the British governm= ent forms the best model the world ever produced… All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born,= the other the mass of the people… The people are turbulent and changing; = they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distin= ct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second… Nothing but a permanent body can check the impudence of democracy.”[49]
Jefferson, on the other hand, believed that a rebellion every 20 years or so was necessary to stop the arteries of freedom from becoming sclerotic. As he wrote to William Stephens Smith in 1787: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from t= ime to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.”[50] And to James Madison he wrote in the same year: “I hold it, a little rebellion now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical… It is a medicine for the sound healt= h of government.”[51]
These different = understandings of democracy were reflected in different views on the two most important is= sues of the day: the relative powers of the central government and the states, a= nd slavery.
With regard to t= he first issue, the champions of a strong central government, the federalists, believed that a strong central government was necessary in order to preserve the gains of the revolution, to guarantee taxation income, and preserve law= and order. As George Washington put it: “Let then the reins of government= be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution= be reprehended. If defective, let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampl= ed on whilst it has an existence.”[52]
Not surprisingly= , many of the antifederalists thought that Washington himself was substituting his= own style of monarchy for the British king. As Joseph J. Ellis writes, they were haunted by “the ideological fear, so effective as a weapon against the taxes imposed by Parliament and decrees of George III, that once arbitrary power was acknowledged to reside elsewhere [than in the states], all liberty was lost. And at a primal level it suggested the unconscious fear of being completely consumed, eaten alive.”[53]
With regard to slavery, there can be no question that the main thrust of the ideology of t= he American revolution was against it. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 declared that it was “not possible that one man should have property = in person of another”. “Removing slavery, however, was not like re= moving British officials or revising constitutions. In isolated pockets of New York and New Jersey, and more panoramically in the entire region south of the Potomac, slavery was woven into the fabric of American society in ways that defied appeals to logic and morality. It also enjoyed the protection of one= of the Revolution’s most potent legacies, the right to dispose of one’s property without arbitrary interference from others, especially when the others resided far away or claimed the authority of some distant government. There were, to be sure, radical implications latent in the ‘principles of ‘76’ capable of challenging privileged app= eals to property rights, but the secret of their success lay in their latency – that is, the gradual and surreptitious ways they revealed their egalitarian implications over the course of the nineteenth century. If slavery’s cancerous growth was to be arrested and the dangerous malignancy removed, it demanded immediate surgery. The radical implications= of the revolutionary legacy were no help at all so long as they remained only implications.
“The depth= and apparent intractability of the problem became much clearer during the debat= es surrounding the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Although the final draft of the document was conspicuously silent on slavery, the subject itself haunted the closed-door debates. No less a source than Madison belie= ved that slavery was the central cause of the most elemental division in the Constitutional Convention: ‘the States were divided into different interests not by their difference of size,’ Madison observed, ‘= but principally from their having or not having slaves… It did not lie between the large and small States: it lay between the Northern and Souther= n.’
“The deleg= ates from New England and most of the Middle Atlantic states drew directly on the inspirational rhetoric of the revolutionary legacy to argue that slavery was inherently incompatible with the republican values on which the American Republic had been based. They wanted an immediate end to the slave trade, an explicit statement prohibiting the expansion of slavery into the western territories as a condition for admission into the union, and the adoption o= f a national plan for gradual emancipation analogous to those state plans alrea= dy adopted in the North…
“The south= ern position might more accurately be described as ‘deep southern’, since it did not include Virginia. Its major advocates were South Carolina = and Georgia, and the chief burden for making the case in the Constitutional Convention fell almost entirely on the South Carolina delegation. The underlying assumption of this position was most openly acknowledged by Char= les Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina – namely, that ‘South Car= olina and Georgia cannot do without slaves’. What those from the Deep South wanted was open-ended access to African imports to stock their plantations. They also wanted equivalently open access to western lands, meaning no fede= ral legislation restricting the property rights of slave owners… <= /p>
“Neither s= ide got what it wanted at Philadelphia in 1787. The Constitution contained no provision that committed the newly created federal government to a policy of gradual emancipation, or in any clear sense placed slavery on the road to ultimate extinction. On the other hand, the Constitution contained no provisions that specifically sanctioned slavery as a permanent and protected institution south of the Potomac or anywhere else. The distinguishing featu= re of the document when it came to slavery was its evasiveness. It was neither= a ‘contract with abolition’ nor a ‘covenant with death̵= 7;, but rather a prudent exercise in ambiguity. The circumlocutions required to place a chronological limit on the slave trade or to count slaves as three-= fifths of a person for purposes of representation in the House, all without ever u= sing the forbidden word, capture the intentionally elusive ethos of the Constitution. The underlying reason for this calculated orchestration of non-commitment was obvious: Any clear resolution of the slavery question one way or the other rendered ratification of the Constitution virtually impossible…”[54]
Even Washington =
was
silent about slavery when he came to make his retirement address in 1796.
“His silence on the slavery question was strategic, believing as he d=
id
that slavery was a cancer on the body politic of America that could not at
present be removed without killing the patient…”[55] And
with reason; for by 1790 the slave population was 700,000, up from about 50=
0,000
in 1776. This, and the implicit threat that South Carolina and Georgia would
secede from the Union if slavery were outlawed, made it clear that abolition
was impractical as politics (but not on a personal level – Washington
decreed in his will that all his slaves should be freed after his wife̵=
7;s
death). And so “the effort to make the Revolution truly complete seem=
ed
diametrically opposed to remaining a united nation.”[56]
Illuminism
In order to unde=
rstand
how the French Revolution passed from its first, democratic and relatively
non-violent phase to the second, proto-communistic and exceedingly bloody
phase, it is necessary to study the history of the secret society known as =
the Illuminati.
Illuminism arose as a kind of parasite feeding on the body of Masonry. Its
appearance was preceded by an astonishing increase in the number of masonic
lodges in France. Zamoyski writes that “there were 104 lodges in Fran=
ce
in 1772, 198 by 1776, and a staggering 629 by 1789. Their membership includ=
ed
virtually every grandee, writer, artist, lawyer, soldier or other professio=
nal
in the country, as well as notable foreigners such as Franklin and Jefferson
– some 30,000 people.”[57]
“Between 8=
00 and
900 masonic lodges,” writes Doyle, “were founded in France betw=
een
1732 and 1793, two-thirds of them after 1760. Between 1773 and 1779 well ov=
er
20,000 members were recruited. Few towns of any consequence were without on=
e or
more lodges by the 1780s and, despite several papal condemnations of a deis=
tic
cult that had originated in Protestant England, the élite of society
flocked to join. Voltaire was drafted in on his last visit to Paris, and it=
was
before the assembled brethren of the Nine Sisters Lodge that he exchanged
symbolic embraces with Franklin.”[58]
Franklin, as we =
have
seen, was an American mason, a famous scientist, and a major player in the
American revolution in which French and Americans had co-operated in
overthrowing British monarchical rule. The American revolution had demonstr=
ated
that the ideas of the philosophes were not just philosophical theory,
but could be translated into reality. And the meeting of Franklin and Volta=
ire
showed that science and philosophy could meet in the womb of Masonry to bri=
ng
forth the common dream - liberty and “the pursuit of happiness”=
.
But just as the
American Revolution was child’s play compared with the savagery and
radicalism of the French Revolution, so these earlier masonic lodges and or=
ders
were innocent by comparison with the profound evil of Illuminism, which was
founded on May 1, 1776[59] by a
Bavarian professor called Weishaupt, who assumed the name of
“Spartacus” (from the slave who rebelled against Rome in the fi=
rst
century BC). It appears to have arisen out of the dissatisfaction of a grou=
p of
Masons with the general state of Masonry. Thus another founder member, the
famous Count Mirabeau, noted in his Memoir in the same year of 1776: “=
;The
Lodge Theodore de Bon Conseil at Munich, where there were a few men =
with
brains and hearts, was tired of being tossed about by the vain promises and
quarrels of Masonry. The heads resolved to graft on to their branch another
secret association to which they gave the name of the Order of the Illum=
inés.
They modelled it on the Society of Jesus, whilst proposing to themselves
diametrically opposed.”[60]
“Our
strength,” wrote Weishaupt, “lies in secrecy. Therefore we must
without hesitation use as a cover some innocent societies. The lodges of bl=
ue
masonry are a fitting veil to hide our real aims, since the world is accust=
omed
to expecting nothing important or constructive from them. Their ceremonies =
are
considered pretty trifles for the amusement of big children. The name of a
learned society is also a magnificent mask behind which we can hide our low=
er
degrees.”[61]
“Weishaupt construc=
ed his
organization on several levels, revealing his most radical plans only to his
chosen co-workers. Weishaupt chose the members of his organization mainly
amidst young people, carefully studying each candidature.
“Having si=
fted
out the unreliable and dubious, the leaders of the order performed on the r=
est
a rite of consecration, which took place after a three-day fast in a dark
basement. Every candidate was consecrated separately, having first had his =
arms
and legs bound. [Then] from various corners of the dark basement the most
unexpected questions were showered upon the initiate.
“Having re=
plied
to the questions, he swore absolute obedience to the leaders of the order.
Every new member signed that he would preserve the secrets of the organizat=
ion
under fear of the death penalty.
“However, =
the
newcomer was not yet considered to be a full member of the organization, but
received the status of novice and for one to three months had to be under t=
he
observation of an experienced illuminé. He was told to keep a special
diary and regularly present it to the leaders. The novice filled in numerous
questionnaires, and also prepared monthly accounts of all matters linking h=
im
with the order. Having passed through all the trials, the novice underwent a
second initiation, now as a fully-fledged member.
“After his
initiation the new member was given a distinguishing sign, gesture and
password, which changed depending on the rank he occupied.
“The newco=
mer
received a special pseudonym (order’s name), usually borrowed from
ancient history…, and got to know an ancient Persian method of
timekeeping, the geography of the order, and also a secret code.
“Weishaupt
imposed into the order a system of global spying and mutual tailing.
“Most of t=
he
members were at the lowest level of the hierarchy.
“No less t=
han a
thousand people entered the organization, but for conspiratorial purposes e=
ach
member knew only a few people. As Weishaupt himself noted, ‘directly
under me there are to, who are completely inspired by me myself, while under
each of them are two, etc. Thus I can stir up and put into motion a thousand
people. This is how one must command and act in politics.”[62]
“Do you re=
alize
sufficiently,” he wrote in the discourse of the reception of the I=
lluminatus
Dirigens, “what it means to rule – to rule in a secret soci=
ety?
Not only over the lesser or more important of the populace, but over the be=
st
men, over men of all ranks, nations, and religions, to rule without external
force, to unite them indissolubly, to breathe one spirit and soul into them,
men distributed over all parts of the world?” [63]
The supposed =
aim
of the new Order was to improve the present system of government and to abo=
lish
“the slavery of the peasants, the servitude of men to the soil, the
rights of main morte and all the customs and privileges which abase humanit=
y,
the corvées under the condition of an equitable equivalent, all the
corporations, all the maîtrises, all the burdens imposed on industry =
and
commerce by customs, excise duties, and taxes… to procure a universal
toleration for all religious opinions… to take away all the arms of
superstitions, to favour the liberty of the press, etc.”[64] This
was almost exactly the same programme as that carried out by the Constituent
Assembly at the beginning of the French revolution in 1789-91 under the
leadership of, among others, the same Count Mirabeau – a remarkable
coincidence!
However, this liberal dem=
ocratic
programme was soon forgotten when Weishaupt took over control of the Order.=
For
“Spartacus” had elaborated a much more radical programme, a
programme that was to resemble the socialism of the later, more radical sta=
ges
of the revolution.
“Weishaupt=
had
made into an absolute theory the misanthropic gibes [boutades] of
Rousseau at the invention of property and society, and without taking into
account the statement so distinctly formulated by Rousseau on the impossibi=
lity
of suppressing property and society once they had been established, he prop=
osed
as the end of Illuminism the abolition of property, social authority, of
nationality, and the return of the human race to the happy state in which it
formed only a single family without artificial needs, without useless scien=
ces,
every father being priest and magistrate. Priest of we know not what religi=
on,
for in spite of their frequent invocations of the God of Nature, many
indications lead us to conclude that Weishaupt had, like Diderot and
d’Holbach, no other God than Nature herself…”[65]
Weishaupt procee=
ded to
create an inner secret circle concealed within Masonry. He used the religio=
us
forms of Masonry, and invented a few “mysteries” himself. But h=
is
aim was the foundation of a political secret organisation controlled=
by
himself.
His political th=
eory,
according to Webster, was “no other than that of modern Anarchy, that=
man
should govern himself and rulers should be gradually done away with. But he=
is
careful to deprecate all ideas of violent revolution – the process is=
to
be accomplished by the most peaceful methods. Let us see how gently he lead=
s up
to the final conclusion:
“’The first s=
tage in
the life of the whole human race is savagery, rough nature, in which the fa=
mily
is the only society, and hunger and thirst are easily satisfied… in w=
hich
man enjoys the two most excellent goods, Equality and Liberty, to their ful=
lest
extent. … In these circumstances… health was his usual
condition… Happy men, who were not yet enough enlightened to lose the=
ir
peace of mind and to be conscious of the unhappy mainsprings and causes of =
our
misery, love of power… envy… illnesses and all the results of
imagination.’
“The
manner in which man fell from this primitive state of felicity is then
described:
“=
217;As
families increased, means of subsistence began to lack, the nomadic life
ceased, property was instituted, men established themselves firmly, and thr=
ough
agriculture families drew near each other, thereby language developed and
through living together men began to measure themselves against each other,
etc… But here was the cause of the downfall of freedom; equality
vanished. Man felt new unknown needs…’
“Thus men =
became
dependent like minors under the guardianship of kings; the human must attai=
n to
majority and become self-governing:
“’Why
should it be impossible that the human race should attain to its highest
perfection, the capacity to guide itself? Why should anyone be eternally led
who understands how to lead himself?’
“Further, =
men
must learn not only to be independent of kings but of each other:
“’Wh=
o has
need of another depends on him and has resigned his rights. So to need litt=
le
is the first step to freedom; therefore savages and the most highly enlight=
ened
are perhaps the only free men. The art of more and more limiting one’s
needs is at the same time the art of attaining freedom…’
“Weishaupt=
then
goes on to show how the further evil of Patriotism arose:
“’Wi=
th the
origin of nations and peoples the world ceased to be a great family, a sing=
le
kingdom: the great tie of nature was torn… Nationalism took the place=
of
human love…. Now it became a virtue to magnify one’s fatherland=
at
the expense of whoever was not enclosed within its limits, now as a means t=
o this
narrow end it was allowed to despise and outwit foreigners or indeed even to
insult them. This virtue was called Patriotism…’
“And so by
narrowing down affection to one’s fellow-citizens, the members of
one’s own family, and even to oneself:
“’Th=
ere
arose out of Patriotism, Localism, the family spirit, and finally Egoism=
230;
Diminish Patriotism, then men will learn to know each other again as such,
their dependence on each other will be lost, the bond of union will widen
out…’
“… W=
hilst
the ancient religions taught the hope of a Redeemer who should restore man =
to
his former state, Weishaupt looks to man alone for his restoration.
‘Men,’ he observes, ‘no longer loved men but only such and
such men. The word was quite lost…’ Thus in Weishaupt’s
masonic system the ‘lost word’ is ‘Man,’ and its
recovery is interpreted by the idea that Man should find himself again. Fur=
ther
on Weishaupt goes on to show how ‘the redemption of the human race is=
to
be brought about’:
“’Th=
ese
means are secret schools of wisdom, these were from all time the archives of
Nature and of human rights, through them will Man be saved from his Fall,
princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the hum=
an
race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men. Mora=
lity
alone will bring about this change imperceptibly. Every father of a family =
will
be, as formerly Abraham and the patriarchs, the priest and unfettered lord =
of
his family, and Reason will be the only code of Man. This is one of our
greatest secrets…’
“… H=
is
first idea was to make Fire Worship the religion of Illuminism; the profess=
ion
of Christianity therefore appears to have been an after-thought. Evidently
Weishaupt discovered, as others have done, that Christianity lends itself m=
ore
readily to subversive ideas than any other religion. And in the passages wh=
ich
follow we find adopting the old ruse of representing Christ as a Communist =
and
as a secret-society adept. Thus he goes on to explain that ‘if Jesus
preaches contempt of riches, He wishes to teach us the reasonable use of th=
em
and prepare for the community of goods introduced by Him,’ and in whi=
ch,
Weishaupt adds later, He lived with His disciples. But this secret doctrine=
is
only to be apprehended by initiates…
“Weishaupt=
thus
contrives to give a purely political interpretation to Christ’s teach=
ing:
“’The
secret preserved through the Disciplinam Arcani, and the aim appeari=
ng
through all His words and deeds, is to give back to men their original libe=
rty
and equality… Now one can understand how far Jesus was the Redeemer a=
nd
Saviour of the world.’
“The missi=
on of
Christ was therefore by means of Reason to make men capable of freedom:
‘When at last reason becomes the religion of man, so will the problem=
be
solved.’
“Wei=
shaupt
goes on to show that Freemasonry can be interpreted in the same manner. The
secret doctrine concealed in the teaching of Christ was handed down by
initiates who ‘hid themselves and their doctrine under the cover of
Freemasonry,’ and in a long explanation of Masonic hieroglyphics he
indicates the analogies between the Hiramic legend and the story of Christ.
‘I say then Hiram is Christ.’… In this manner Weishaupt
demonstrates that ‘Freemasonry is hidden Christianity… But this=
is
of course only the secret of what Weishaupt calls ‘real
Freemasonry’ in contradistinction to the official kind, which he rega=
rds
as totally unenlightened.”[66]
But the whole of=
this
religious side of Weishaupt’s system is in fact simply a ruse, a cove=
r,
by which to attract religious men. Weishaupt himself despised religion:
“You cannot imagine,” he wrote, “what consideration and
sensation our Priest’s degree is arousing. The most wonderful thing is
that great Protestant and reformed theologians who belong to =
Q [Illuminism] still belie=
ve that
the religious teaching imparted in it contains the true and genuine spirit =
of
the Christian religion. Oh! men, of what cannot you be persuaded? I never
thought that I should become the founder of a new religion.”[67]
Only gradually, =
and
only to a very few of his closest associates, did Weishaupt reveal the real
purpose of his order – the revolutionary overthrow of the whole of
society, civil and religious. Elements of all religions and philosophical
systems, including Christianity and Masonry, were used by Weishaupt to enro=
l a
body of influential men (about 2500 at one time[68]) who
would obey him in all things while knowing neither him personally nor the r=
eal
aims of the secret society they had been initiated into. The pyramidal stru=
cture
of his organization, whereby nobody on a lower level knew what was happenin=
g on
the one above his, while those on the higher levels knew everything about w=
hat
was happening below them, was copied by all succeeding revolutionary
organizations.
Weishaupt was we=
ll on
the way to taking over Freemasonry (under the guise of its reform) when, in
July, 1785, an Illuminatus was struck by lightning and papers found =
on
him led to the Bavarian government banning the organisation. However, both
Illuminism and Weishaupt continued in existence – only France rather =
than
Germany became the centre of their operations. Thus the Parisian lodge of t=
he
Amis Réunis, renamed the Ennemis Réunis, gathered together all
the really radical Masons from various other lodges, many of which were sti=
ll
royalist, and turned them, often unconsciously, into agents of Weishaupt. T=
hese
adepts included no less than thirty princes. For it was characteristic of t=
he
revolution that among those who were most swept up by the madness of its in=
toxication
were those who stood to lose most from it.
Some far-sighted=
men,
such as the Apostolic Nuncio in Vienna and the Marquis de Luchet, warned
against Illuminism, and de Luchet predicted almost exactly the course of ev=
ents
that the revolution would take on the basis of his knowledge of the order. =
But
no one paid any attention. But then, in October, 1789 a pamphlet was seized=
in
the house of the wife of Mirabeau’s publisher among Mirabeau’s
papers and published two years later.
“Beginning=
with
a diatribe against the French monarchy,” writes Webster, “the
document goes on to say that ‘in order to triumph over this hydra-hea=
ded
monster these are my ideas’:
“’We=
must
overthrow all order, suppress all laws, annul all power, and leave the peop=
le
in anarchy. The law we establish will not perhaps be in force at once, but =
at
any rate, having given back the power to the people, they will resist for t=
he
sake of the liberty which they will believe they are preserving. We must ca=
ress
their vanity, flatter their hopes, promise them happiness after our work has
been in operation; we must elude their caprices and their systems at will, =
for
the people as legislators are very dangerous, they only establish laws which
coincide with their passions, their want of knowledge would besides only gi=
ve
birth to abuses. But as the people are a lever which legislators can move at
their will, we must necessarily use them as a support, and render hateful to
them everything we wish to destroy and sow illusions in their path; we must
also buy all the mercenary pens which propagate our methods and which will
instruct the people concerning their enemies which we attack. The clergy, b=
eing
the most powerful through public opinion, can only be destroyed by ridiculi=
ng
religion, rendering its ministers odious, and only representing them as
hypocritical monsters… Libels must at every moment show fresh traces =
of
hatred against the clergy. To exaggerate their riches, to makes the sins of=
an
individual appear to be common to all, to attribute to them all vices; calu=
mny,
murder, irreligion, sacrilege, all is permitted in times of revolution.R=
17;
“’We=
must
degrade the noblesse and attribute it to an odious origin, establish=
a
germ of equality which can never exist but which will flatter the people; [=
we
must] immolate the most obstinate, burn and destroy their property in order=
to
intimidate the rest, so that if we cannot entirely destroy this prejudice we
can weaken it and the people will avenge their vanity and their jealousy by=
all
the excesses which will bring them to submission.’
“After
describing how the soldiers are to be seduced from their allegiance, and the
magistrates represented to the people as despots, ‘since the people,
brutal and ignorant, only see the evil and never the good of things,’=
the
writer explains they must be given only limited power in the municipalities=
.
“’Le=
t us
beware above all of giving them too much force; their despotism is too
dangerous, we must flatter the people by gratuitous justice, promise them a
great diminution in taxes and a more equal division, more extension in
fortunes, and less humiliation. These phantasies [vertiges] will
fanaticise the people, who will flatten out all resistance. What matter the
victims and their numbers? Spoliations, destructions, burnings, and all the
necessary effects of a revolution? Nothing must be sacred and we can say wi=
th
Machiavelli: “What matter the means as long as one arrives at the
end?”’”[69]
The early phase =
of the
revolution appears to have been driven by the more idealistic kind of
Freemasons – men such as the Duc d’Orléans. But its later
stages were controlled by the Illuminati with their more radically
destructive plans. Thus “according to Lombard de Langres [writing in
1820]: ’France in 1789 counted more than 2,000 lodges affiliated to t=
he
Grand Orient; the number of adepts was more than 100,000. The first events =
of
1789 were only Masonry in action. All the revolutionaries of the Constituent
Assembly were initiated into the third degree. We place in this class the D=
uc
d’Orléans, Valence, Syllery, Laclos, Sièyes, Pét=
ion,
Menou, Biron, Montesquiou, Fauchet, Condorcet, Lafayette, Mirabeau, Garat,
Rabaud, Dubois-Crancé, Thiébaud, Larochefoucauld, and others.=
’
“Amongst t=
hese
others [continues Webster] were not only the Brissotins, who formed the nuc=
leus
of the Girondin party, but the men of the Terror – Marat, Robespierre,
Danton, and Desmoulins.
“It was th=
ese
fiercer elements, true disciples of the Illuminati, who were to sweep
away the visionary Masons dreaming of equality and brotherhood. Following t=
he
precedent set by Weishaupt, classical pseudonyms were adopted by these lead=
ers
of the Jacobins, thus Chaumette was known as Anaxagoras, Clootz as Anachars=
is,
Danton as Horace, Lacroix as Publicola, and Ronsin as Scaevola; again, after
the manner of the Illuminati, the names of towns were changed and a
revolutionary calendar was adopted. The red cap and loose hair affected by =
the
Jacobins appear also to have been foreshadowed in the lodges of the Illu=
minati.
“Yet faith=
fully
as the Terrorists carried out the plan of the Illuminati, it would s=
eem
that they themselves were not initiated into the innermost secrets of the
conspiracy. Behind the Convention, behind the clubs, behind the Revolutiona=
ry
Tribunal, there existed, says Lombard de Langres, that ‘most secret
convention [convention sécrétissime] which directed
everything after May 31, an occult and terrible power of which the other
Convention became the slave and which was composed of the prime initiates of
Illuminism. This power was above Robespierre and the committees of the
government,… it was this occult power which appropriated to itself the
treasures of the nation and distributed them to the brothers and friends who
had helped on the great work.’”[70]
Illuminism repre=
sents
perhaps the first clearly organised expression of that philosophy which
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose called “the Nihilism of Destruction”.[71] Fr.
Seraphim considered that this philosophy was unique to the twentieth centur=
y;
but the evidence for its existence already in the eighteenth century is
overwhelming. With Illuminism, therefore, we enter the atmosphere of the
twentieth-century totalitarian revolutions....
The French Revolution: (2=
) The
Jacobin Terror
In June, 1791 Lo=
uis
XVI tried, unsuccessfully, to flee abroad, and in August the monarchs of
Austria and Prussia met at Pillnitz to co-ordinate action against the
Revolution. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Catherine of Russia also prepar=
ed
to crush the “orang-outangs of Europe”. From the summer of 1791=
to
the summer of 1792 power steadily slipped away from the elected Constituent
Assembly, which was still broadly in favour of a constitutional monarchy, a=
nd
into the hands of the mob, or the Paris Commune. Their passionate hatred of
refractory priests and monarchists inside the country was inflamed by the f=
irst
attempts of the foreign powers to invade France and restore legitimate
authority from outside.
The rhetoric bec=
ame
increasingly bloody. Thus on April 25, 1792 the “Marseillaise” =
was
composed for the army of the Rhine; “impure blood, it exulted, would
drench the tracks of the conquering French armies.”[72] And=
on
the same day the new invention of the Guillotine claimed its first
victim…
On June 20 the m=
ob or sansculottes
(without breeches), invaded the Tuileries. “By sheer weight of
numbers,” writes Zamoyski, “the crowd pushed through the gates =
of
the royal palace and came face to face with Louis XVI in one of the upstairs
salons, where the defenceless monarch had to endure the abuse of the mob.
Pistols and drawn sabres were waved in his face, and he was threatened with
death. More significantly, he was made to don a red cap [symbol of the
revolution] and drink the health of the nation – and thereby to
acknowledge its sovereignty. By acquiescing, he toasted himself off the
throne.”[73]
For a brief mome=
nt, on
July 14, the third anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, it looked a=
s if
constitutional monarchy could be saved. Louis was called “king of the French” a=
nd
“father of his country”. But on the same day Marie
Antoinette’s nephew, Francis II, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in
Frankfurt in a ceremony that reaffirmed with great splendour the principle =
of
autocratic monarchy. Between the revolution celebrated in France and the
autocracy celebrated in Germany there could be no permanent compromise. The
centre, constitutional monarchy, could not hold…
Pressure mounted=
on
the Assembly to declare the dethronement of the king. Finally, on August 10,
the Tuileries was again invaded, 600 Swiss guards were brutally massacred, =
and
the king was imprisoned. The Assembly “had little alternative but to
‘invite’ the French people to form a convention ‘to assure
the sovereignty of the people and the reign of liberty and equality. The ne=
xt
day it decreed that the new assembly was to be elected by manhood suffrage,
without distinction between citizens. Only servants and the unemployed had =
no
vote.”[74]
Paris was ruled =
by the
mob now. In September the prisons were opened and suspected royalists were
slaughtered. On September 20 the Prussian army was defeated at Valmy, and t=
he
next day the monarchy was officially abolished.[75]
The newly elected
Convention’s task was to legislate for a new republican Constitution.=
It
was divided between “Montagnards” (Jacobins) on the left, led by
Marat, Danton, Robespierre and the Parisian delegates, and the
“Girondins” on the right, led by Brissot, Vergniaud and the
“faction of the Gironde”. The Montagnards were identified with =
the
interests of the Paris mob and the most radical ideas of the Revolution; the
Girondins – with the interests of the provinces and the original libe=
ral
ideals of 1789. The Montagnards stood for disposing of the king as soon as
possible; the Girondins wanted a referendum of the whole people to decide. =
The Montagnard
Saint-Just said that a trial was unnecessary; the people had already judged=
the
king on August 10; it remained only to punish him. For “there is no
innocent reign… every King is a rebel and a usurper.”[76]
Robespierre had voted against the death penalty in the Assembly, but now he
said that “Louis must die that the country may love”. And he ag=
reed
with Saint-Just: “Louis cannot be judged, he has already been judged.=
He
has been condemned, or else the Republic is not blameless. To suggest putti=
ng
Louis XVI on trial, in whatever way, is a step back towards royal and
constitutional despotism; it is a counter-revolutionary idea; because it pu=
ts
the Revolution itself in the dock. After all, if Louis can still be put on
trial, Louis can be acquitted; he might be innocent. Or rather, he is presu=
med
to be until he is found guilty. But if Louis can be presumed innocent, what
becomes of the Revolution?”[77]
There was a cert=
ain
logic in these words: since the Revolution undermined all the foundations of
the ancien régime, the possibility that the head of that
régime might be innocent implied that the Revolution might be guilty=
. So
“revolutionary justice” required straight execution rather than=
a
trial; it could not afford to question the foundations of the Revolution
itself. It was the same logic that led to the execution without trial of Ts=
ar
Nicholas II in 1917.
But the majority=
of
the deputies were not yet as “advanced” in their thinking as
Robespierre. So “during the third week of January 1793,” writes
Ridley, “the Convention voted four times on the issue. A resolution
finding Louis guilty of treason, and rejecting the idea of an appeal to the
people by a plebiscite [so much for Rousseauist democracy!], was carried by=
426
votes to 278; the decision to impose the death penalty was carried by 387 to
314. Philippe Egalité [the Duke of Orléans and cousin of the =
king
who became Grand Master of the Masons, then a Jacobin, renouncing his title=
for
the name ‘Philippe Egalité’] voted to convict Louis and =
for
the death penalty. A deputy then proposed that the question of what to do w=
ith
Louis should be postponed indefinitely. This was defeated by 361 to 360, a
single vote. Philippe Egalité voted against the proposal, so his vote
decided the issue. On 20 January a resolution that the death sentence shoul=
d be
immediately carried out was passed by 380 to 310, and Louis was guillotined=
the
next day.”[78]
After the execut=
ion a
huge old man with a long beard who had been prominent in the murdering of
priests during the September riots mounted the scaffold, plunged both hands
into the kind’s blood and sprinkled the people with it, shouting:
“People of France! I baptise you in the name of Jacob and Freedom!=
221;[79]
“Traditionally,” writes Zamoyski, “the death of a =
king
of France was announced with the phrase: ‘Le Roi est mort, vive le
Roi!’, in order to stress the continuity of the institution of
monarchy. When the king’s head, was held aloft on that sunless day, t=
he
crowd assembled around the scaffold shouted: ‘Vive la Nation!̵=
7;
The message was unequivocal. The nation had replaced the king as the sovere=
ign
and therefore as the validating element in the state. The dead king’s=
God
had been superseded by ‘Our Lord Mankind’, to use the words of =
one
prominent revolutionary.”[80]
“The
condemnation of the king,” wrote Camus, “is the crux of
contemporary history. It symbolizes the secularization of our history and t=
he
disincarnation of the Christian God. Up to now, God played a part in history
through the medium of kings. But His representative in history has been
killed…”[81]
The execution of=
the
king was the signal for the abandonment of all restraint. The cause of the
Revolution became the absolute value to which every other value was to be
subordinated and sacrificed. In February, 1793, after the British broke off
relations because of the execution of the king, the Convention declared war=
on
the British and the Dutch, and in effect “bade defiance to the whole =
of
Europe. ‘They threaten you with kings!’ roared Danton to the
Convention. ‘You have thrown down your gauntlet to them, and this
gauntlet is a king’s head, the signal of their coming death.’
‘We cannot be calm,’ claimed the ever-bombastic Brissot,
‘until Europe, all Europe, is in flames.’ In token of this
defiance, annexations were now vigorously pursued…”[82] No
matter that the Declaration of the Rights of Man had declared for the freed=
om
of every nation: revolutionary casuistry interpreted sovereignty to be the
right only of revolutionary nations; all others deserved to become slaves of
the Republic.
Moreover, on Dec=
ember
15, 1792 “generals were authorized in all occupied territories to
introduce the full social programme of the French Republic. All existing ta=
xes,
tithes, feudal dues, and servitudes were to be abolished. So was nobility, =
and
all types of privilege. The French motto would be, declared some deputies, =
War
on the castles, peace to the cottages! In the name of peace, help, frat=
ernity,
liberty and equality, they would assist all people to establish ‘free=
and
popular’ governments, with whom they would then co-operate.”[83]
But practice did=
not
match theory: the theory of cosmopolitan universalism too often gave way to=
the
practice of imperialist nationalism. Thus when Holland was conquered by the
revolutionary armies, “it was compelled to cede various southern
territories, including control of the mouth of the Scheldt, and pay for the
upkeep of a French occupying army of 25,000 men. Finally, it was forced to
conclude an alliance with the French Republic whose chief attraction was to
place the supposedly formidable Dutch navy in the balance against Great
Britain. This, then, was what the fraternity and help of the French Republi=
c actually
meant: total subordination to French needs and purposes.”[84]
Imperialism abro=
ad was
matched by despotism at home, forced conscription and crippling taxes. And =
now
for the first time there was massive resistance. First came the peasant
counter-revolution in the western regions of Brittany and the Vendée,
which was crushed with great cruelty[85] with
the loss of about 250,000 lives, about ten times more than were claimed by =
the
guillotine. At about the same time the revolutionary army under Dumouriez w=
as
defeated by the Austrians at Neerwinden. Dumouriez then changed sides, and =
it
was only the army’s refusal to co-operate that prevented him from
marching on Paris to restore the constitution of 1791 with Louis XVII as ki=
ng.[86]
The peasant revo=
lt in
the Vendée was by far the most serious and prolonged that the
revolutionaries had to face, and it is significant that it was fought under=
the
banner of the restoration of the king and the Church. The rebels wore
“sacred hearts, crosses, and the white cockade of royalism. ‘Lo=
ng
live the king and our good priests,’ was their cry. ‘We want our
king, our priests and the old regime.’”[87]
However, the
counter-revolution in other parts of the country, and especially among the =
bourgeoisie
of such large cities as Marseilles, Lyons and Bourdeaux, was less principled
and therefore much less effective. As one general reported of the Bordelais:
“They appeared to me determined not to involve themselves in Parisian
affairs, but more determined still to retain their liberty, their property,
their opulence… They don’t want a king: they want a republic, b=
ut a
rich and tranquil republic.”[88]
This difference =
in
motivation between different parts of the counter-revolution, and the failu=
re
of many of its leaders to condemn the revolution in toto and as s=
uch,
and not just some of its wilder excesses, doomed it to failure in the long
term. As long as the revolutionaries held the centre, and were able to use =
the
methods of terror and mass conscription to send large armies into the field
against their enemies, the advantage lay with them. And their position was
strengthened still further by the coup against the Girondist deputies carri=
ed
out between May 31 and June 2, 1793.
“In July
1793,” writes Ridley, “a young Girondin woman, Charlotte Corday,
gained admission to Marat’s house by pretending that she wished to gi=
ve
him a list of names of Girondins to be guillotined. She found him sitting as
usual in his bath to cure his skin disease, and she stabbed him to death.[89] She=
was
guillotined, and the Girondin party was suppressed.
“In Lyons,=
the
Girondins had gained control of the Freemasons’ lodges. In the summer=
of
1793 the Girondins there defied the authority of the Jacobin government in
Paris, and guillotined one of the local Jacobin leaders. The Lyons Freemaso=
ns
played a leading part in the rising against the Paris Jacobins; but the
Jacobins suppressed the revolt, and several of the leading Girondin Freemas=
ons
of Lyons were guillotined.”[90]
And so the Revol=
ution
was frenziedly devouring its own children.[91] Or
rather, the Masons were devouring their own brothers; for the struggle betw=
een
the Girondists and the Montagnards was in fact, according to Lev Tikhomirov=
, a
struggle between different layers of Masonry.[92]
“However, in the period of the terror the majority of Masonic lodges =
were
closed. As Louis Blanc explains, a significant number of Masons, though
extremely liberal-minded, could still not, in accordance with their personal
interests, character and public position, sympathise with the incitement of=
the
maddened masses against the rich, to whom they themselves belonged. In the
hottest battle of the revolution it was those who split off into the highest
degrees who acted. The Masonic lodges were replaced by political clubs,
although in the political clubs, too, there began a sifting of the
revolutionaries into the more moderate and the extremists, so that quite a =
few
Masons perished on the scaffolds from the hands of their
‘brothers’. After the overthrow of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor t=
he
Masonic lodges were again opened.”[93]
Now the Terror w=
ent
into overdrive. The guillotine was used to eliminate traitors, backsliders,
suspects, speculators and “egoists”. “The spirit of
moderation,” declared Leclerc, needed to be expunged.[94]
On September 17 a
comprehensive Law of Suspects was passed, which empowered watch committees
“to arrest anyone who ‘either by their conduct, their contacts,
their words or their writings, showed themselves to be supporters of tyrann=
y,
of federalism, or to be enemies of liberty’, as well as a number of m=
ore
specific categories such as former nobles ‘who have not constantly
manifested their attachment to the revolution.’ Practically anybody m=
ight
fall foul of such a sweeping law. In the weeks following even everyday spee=
ch
acquired a sansculotte style. Those who refused to call each other
‘citizen’ rather than the deferential ‘Monsieur’, a=
nd
to use the familiar form of address (tutoiement), fell under automat=
ic
suspicion. Then on 29 September the Convention passed a General Maximum Law
which imposed price controls on a wide range of goods defined as of first
necessity from food and drink to fuel, clothing, and even tobacco. Those who
sold them above the maximum would be fined and placed on the list of suspec=
ts.
The Revolutionary Army was at last set on foot…”[95]
The Committee of
Public Safety now took over control of the government, subject only to the
oversight of the Convention. This anti-democratic move was said to be tempo=
rary
and justified by the emergency situation. “It is impossible,” s=
aid
Saint-Just in the Committee’s name, “for revolutionary laws to =
be
executed if the government itself is not constituted in a revolutionary
way.”[96]
The revolutionary
government now took terrible revenge on its defeated enemies. On October 12=
the
Committee “moved a decree that Lyons should be destroyed. Its very na=
me
was to disappear, except on a monument among the ruins which would proclaim
‘Lyons made war on Liberty. Lyons is no more.’”[97] Lyo=
ns
was not completely destroyed, but whole ranges of houses were burnt and
thousands were guillotined and shot. “The effect… was designed =
to
be a salutory one. ‘What cement for the Revolution,’ gloated Ac=
hard
in a letter to Paris.”[98]
In order to carr=
y out
its totalitarian programme of control of the whole population, the governme=
nt
issued “certificates of civisme – identity cards and
testimonials of public reliability all in one. Originally only foreigners h=
ad
been required to carry these documents, but the Law of Suspects made the
requirement general [thereby showing that for the revolutionary government =
all
citizens were aliens]. Those without them were liable to arrest and
imprisonment; and in fact up to half a million people may have been impriso=
ned
as suspects of one sort or another during the Terror. Up to 10,000 may have
died in custody, crowded into prisons never intended for such numbers, or
makeshift quarters no better equipped. These too deserve to be numbered amo=
ng
the victims of the Terror, although not formally condemned. So do those who
were murdered or lynched without trial or official record during the chaoti=
c,
violent autumn of 1793, when the supreme law of public safety seemed to
override more conventional and cumbersome procedures. Altogether the true t=
otal
of those who died under the Terror may have been twice the official figure
– around 30,000 people in just under a year… Nor is it true that
most of those killed in the Terror were members of the former ‘privil=
eged
orders’, whatever the Revolution’s anti-aristocratic rhetoric m=
ight
suggest. Of the official death sentences passed, less than 9 per cent fell =
upon
nobles, and less than 7 per cent on the clergy. Disproportionately high as
these figures may have been relative to the numbers of these groups in the
population as a whole, they were not as high as the quarter of the
Terror’s victims who came from the middle classes. And the vast major=
ity
of those who lost their lives in the proscriptions of 1793-4 – two-th=
irds
of those officially condemned and doubtless a far higher proportion of those
who disappeared unofficially – were ordinary people caught up in trag=
ic
circumstances not of their own making, who made wrong choices in lethal tim=
es,
when indifference itself counted as a crime.”[99]
The incarnation =
of the
revolution in this, its bloodiest phase was the lawyer Maximilien Robespier=
re.
Uniting in his own person the despotism of Louis XIV and the freedom-worshi=
p of
Rousseau, he said: “I am not a flatterer, a conciliator, an orator, a
protector of the people; I myself am the people.” Again, uniti=
ng
opposites in thoroughly Hegelian fashion, he said: “The impulse behind
the people’s revolutionary government is virtue and terror: virtue
without which terror is pernicious; terror without which virtue is
impotent… The government of the Revolution is the despotism of liberty
over tyranny…”[100]
As the Girondin =
Manon
Roland said just before his execution: “Oh, Liberty! How many crimes =
are
committed in thy name!”[101]
The institution which suf=
fered
most in the years 1789-91 was the Catholic Church. It lost its feudal dues =
in
August and its lands in October, 1789. In February, 1790 all monasteries and
convents, except those devoted to educational and charitable work, were
dissolved, and new religious vows were forbidden. The Assembly then
“replaced the 135 bishops with 85, one for each départment<=
/u>,
and provided one curé for every 6,000 inhabitants. Bishops we=
re
henceforth to be elected (by an electorate including non-believers, Protest=
ants
and Jews) without reference to Rome.”[102]
The weakened pos=
ition
of the Church encouraged the Protestants, and in June 300 died in clashes
between Catholics and Protestants in Nîmes. Meanwhile, 150,000 papal
subjects living in Avignon and the Comtat agitated for integration with Fra=
nce.
Pope Pius VI rejected this, and on March 29 he also rejected the Declaratio=
n of
the Rights of Man and all the religious legislation so far passed in the
Assembly. On July 12 a Civil Constitution for the Clergy was passed,
rationalising the Church’s organisation, putting all the clergy on the
State’s pay-roll and decreeing the election of the clergy by lay
assemblies who might included Protestants and Jews as well as Catholics. The
Pope had already, on July 10, pleaded with the King to veto the Civil
Constitution, but the king, advised by weak bishops, had already given his
preliminary sanction.
With the Pope ag=
ainst
the Civil Constitution, its acceptance or rejection became a test of faith =
for
Catholics. As opinion polarised, on October 30 thirty bishops from the Asse=
mbly
signed an Exposition of Principles, explaining that, as Doyle writes,
“they could not connive at such radical changes without consulting the
Church through either a council or the Pope. Nevertheless patriots saw it a=
s an
incitement to disobey the law, and local authorities, clamorously supported=
by
Jacobin clubs, began to enforce it. Bishops began to be expelled from
suppressed sees; chapters were dissolved. In October and early November the
first departmental bishops were elected. But this time the clergy did not
meekly accept its fate. There were protests. ‘I can no more’,
declared the incumbent of the doomed see of Senez, ‘renounce the
spiritual contract which binds me to my Church than I can renounce the prom=
ises
of my baptism… I belong to my flock in life and in death… If God
wishes to test his own, the eighteenth century, like the first century, will
have its martyrs.’ The first elected bishop, the deputy Expilly, who =
was
chosen by the Finistère department, was refused confirmation by the
archbishop of Rennes. In Soissons, the bishop was dismissed by the departme=
ntal
authorities for denouncing the Civil Constitution. It was impossible to dis=
miss
all the 104 priests of Nantes who did the same, but their salaries were
stopped. Evidently there was to be no peaceful transition to a new
ecclesiastical order, and indignant local authorities bombarded the Assembly
with demands for action. Eventually, on 27 November, action was taken. The =
deputies
decided, after two days of bitter debate, to dismiss at once all clerics who
did not accept the new order unequivocally. And to test this acceptance they
imposed an oath. All beneficed clergy were to swear after mass on the first
available Sunday ‘to be faithful to the nation, the King and the law,=
and
to uphold with all their power the constitution declared by the National
Assembly and accepted by the king.’ All who refused were to be replac=
ed
at once through the procedures laid down in the Civil Constitution.
“The French
Revolution had many turning-points: but the oath of the clergy was, if not =
the
greatest, unquestionably one of them. It was certainly the Constituent
Assembly’s most serious mistake. For the first time the revolutionari=
es
forced fellow citizens to choose; to declare themselves publicly for or aga=
inst
the new order… With no word from Rome, the king sanctioned the new de=
cree
of 26 December, so that oath-taking (or refusal) dominated public life
throughout the country in January and February 1791. The clergy in the Asse=
mbly
themselves set the pattern, in that they were completely divided. Only 109 =
took
the oath, and only two bishops, one of them Talleyrand. As the deadline
approached on 4 January the Assembly was surrounded by crowds shouting for
nonjurors to be lynched; and the patriots, led unpersuasively by the Protes=
tant
Barnave, used every possible argument and procedural ploy to sway waverers.=
But
there were none. And faced with this example from the majority of clerical =
deputies,
it is little wonder that so many clerics in the country at large became
refractories (as nonjurors were soon being called)… Above all, there =
was
a massive refusal of the oath throughout the west…In the end, about 54
per cent of the parish clergy took the oath. This suggests that well over a
third of the country was now prepared to signal that the Revolution had gone
far enough…”[103]
There is a bitter
irony in these events. How often, since 1066 and the Investitures Conflict,=
had
Popes bent western kings to their evil will! However, as present events now
demonstrated, these were pyrrhic victories, which, in weakening the Monarch=
y,
ultimately weakened the Church, too, in that Church and Monarchy are the two
essential pillars of every Christian society. Right up to the Reformation t=
he
Popes had failed to understand that attacks on the throne were also attacks=
on
the altar, and that an accusation of “royal despotism” would al=
most
invariably be linked with one of “episcopal despotism”. The
Counter-Reformation Popes were more careful to respect monarchical authorit=
y,
and Louis XIV’s abrupt about-turn from Gallicanism to Ultramontanism
witnessed to their continuing influence. But the constant political intrigu=
es
of the papal society of the Jesuits, which made them a kind of “state
within the state”, led to their being banned by all the governments of
Western Europe - a severe blow from which the power of the Popes never fully
recovered and which was an important condition of the success of the revolu=
tion.
The Masons and even more radical groups like the “Illuminati” (=
see
below) were quick to take the place of the Jesuits as the main threat to
established authority, while using the Jesuits’ methods. And now, at =
the
end of the eighteenth century, when papism was in full retreat before the
onslaught of enlightened despots like Joseph II and revolutionary democrats
like the French National Assembly, and the Popes were desperately in need of
the support of “Most Catholic Kings” such as Louis XVI, they pa=
id
the price for centuries of papal anti-monarchism. Indeed, since it was Papi=
sm
that destroyed the Orthodox symphony of powers, and thereby created the
conditions for the revolution, there was some sense in Catherine II’s
suggestion that the European powers “embrace the Greek religion to sa=
ve
themselves from this immoral, anarchic, wicked and diabolical
plague…”[104]
In its second, J=
acobin
phase the revolution revealed its anti-Christian essence most clearly. Thus=
at
the funeral of Marat in July, 1793, the following eulogy was given: “O
heart of Marat, sacré coeur… can the works and
benevolence of the son of Mary be compared with those of the Friend of the
People and his apostles to the Jacobins of our holy Mountain?… Their
Jesus was but a false prophet but Marat is a god…”[105]
The revolution w=
as in
essence anti-Christian because it came to provide a new faith instead of
Christianity: the cult of the nation. Let us recall the earlier stages in t=
he
rise of the cult of the nation: the oath to the nation that Rousseau provid=
ed
for Napoleon’s native Corsica; the speech of the Polish marshal, Josef
Pulaski at Bar in 1768, when he said: “We are to die so that the
motherland may live; for while we live the motherland is dying”[106]; t=
he
birth of the American nation in 1776; the abortive Irish revolution of 1783;
the abortive Dutch revolution of 1785, which declared liberty the
“inalienable right” of every citizen, and whose “Leiden
draft” declared: “the Sovereign is no other than the vote of th=
e people”.[107]
But these were m=
erely
dress-rehearsals for the full emergence of the new nationalist faith, whose
foundation stone, as we have seen, was the third of the Rights of Man decla=
red
by the French National Assembly on August 26, 1789: “The principle of=
all
sovereignty lies in the nation. No body of men, and no individual, can exer=
cise
authority which does not emanate directly therefrom.”
It should be
understood that this was not simply an expression of patriotism, but precis=
ely a
new faith to replace all existing faiths. For “the nation, as
Abbé Siéyès put it, recognized no interest on earth ab=
ove
its own, and accepted no law or authority other than its own – neither
that of humanity at large nor of other nations”[108]
– nor, it goes without saying, of God. The nation therefore stood in =
the
place of God; in the strict sense of the word, it was an idol. So Hobsbawm
rightly comments: “’The people’ identified with ‘the
nation’ was a revolutionary concept; more revolutionary than the
bourgeois-liberal programme which purported to express it.”[109]
But what precise=
ly was
the nation, and how was it revealed? To this question the most revolutionar=
y of
the philosophes and the prophet of nationalism, Rousseau, had provid=
ed
the answer. The nation, he said, is revealed in the general will, which was=
not
to be identified with the will of any individual, such as the king, or grou=
p,
such as a parliamentary majority, but only in some spontaneous, mystical
upswelling of emotion that carried all before it and was not to be question=
ed
or criticised by any rational considerations. It was a “holy
madness”, to use Lafayette’s phrase.[110]
“’He=
who
would dare to undertake to establish a nation would have to feel himself
capable of altering, so to speak, human nature, to transform each individua=
l, who
by his very nature is a unique and perfect whole, into a mere part of a gre=
ater
whole, from which this individual would in a sense receive his life and his
being,’ Rousseau had written. He understood that any polity, however
logical, simple, elegant, poetic or modern, would be inadequate to replace =
the
layered sacrality of something like the Crown of France and the whole
theological and mythical charge of the Catholic Church. Human emotions need=
ed
something richer to feed on than a mere ‘system’ if they were t=
o be
engaged. And engaged they must be, for if one removed religious control of
social behaviour and the monarch’s role as ultimate arbiter, the very
fount-head of civil sanction would dry up. Something had to be put in their
place. The question was ultimately how to induce people to be good in a god=
less
society.
“As it was=
the
people themselves who gave the state its legitimacy, it was they who had to=
be
invested with divinity. The monarch would be replaced by a disembodied
sovereign in the shape of the nation, which all citizens must be taught to
‘adore’. ‘It is education that must give to the souls of =
men
the national form, and so direct their thoughts and their tastes, that they
will be patriotic by inclination, by passion, by necessity,’ Rousseau
explained. This education included not only teaching but also sport and pub=
lic
ceremonies designed to inculcate the desired values. ‘From the excite=
ment
caused by this common emulation will be born that patriotic intoxication wh=
ich
alone can elevate men above themselves, and without which liberty is no more
than an empty word and legislation but an illusion.’
“A precond=
ition
of this was the the total elimination of Christianity. Being a sentimental
person, Rousseau could not remain entirely unmoved by what he saw as the
‘sublime’ core of Christianity. But the existence of a morally
independent religion alongside the civil institutions was bound to be
destructive. ‘Far from binding the hearts of the citizens to the stat=
e,
it detaches them from it, as from all earthly things,’ he writes:
‘I can think of nothing more contrary to the social spirit.’ It
forced on people ‘two sets of laws, two leaders, two motherlands̵=
7;,
subjecting them to ‘contradictory duties’ and preventing them f=
rom
being ‘both devout practitioners and good citizens’. Christiani=
ty
demanded self-denial and submission, but only to God, and not to any creati=
on
of Man’s. A Christian’s soul could not be fused with the
‘collective soul’ of the nation, challenging the very basis of
Rousseau’s proposition. His assertion that ‘a man is virtuous w=
hen
his particular will is in accordance in every respect with the general
will’, was heresy in Christian terms, according to which virtue consi=
sts
in doing the will of God. There was no room for someone whose ultimate loya=
lty
was to God in Rousseau’s model, which substituted the nation for
God.”[111]
Zamoyski continu=
es:
“Anthropologically visualized as a universal ideal female, the nation
kindled desire for selfless sacrifice in its cause, and that was the great
strength of the French revolution. ‘Since it appeared to be more
concerned with the regeneration of the human race than with reforming Franc=
e,
it aroused feelings that no political revolutions had hitherto managed to
inspire,’ explained Tocqueville. ‘It inspired proselytism and g=
ave
birth to the propagande,’ he continued, and, ‘like Islam,
flooded the whole world with its soldiers, its apostles and its
martyrs.’”[112]
A programme know=
n as
de-christianization was now launched. The calendar and festivals of the old
religion were replaced by those of the new, civic religion of the nation. T=
hus
July 14, August 10, January 21 (the day of the execution of Louis XVI) and =
May
31 (the day of the establishment of the Jacobin tyranny) were commanded to =
be
celebrated as feast-days.
Bamber Gascoigne
writes: “August 10th was the first anniversary of the day =
on
which the Paris mob had stormed the Tuileries and had put an effective end =
to
the monarchy. The occasion was celebrated with a Festival of Regeneration, =
also
known by the even more uninspiring name of Festival of the Unity and
Indivisibility of the Republic. Among the ruins of the Bastille Jacques-Lou=
is
David had built a huge figure of a seated woman. She was Mother Nature. From
her breasts there spurted two jets of water, at which delegates filled their
cups and drank libations. Three months later there was a Festival of Reason=
, in
which an actress from the opera played the Goddess of Reason and was enthro=
ned
in the cathedral of Notre-Dame – with the red bonnet of Liberty on her
head and a crucifix beneath one of her elegant feet.”[113]
All the churches=
in
Paris were closed, and the royal tombs were destroyed. Then there arrived in
the Nièvre in September, 1793 the representative Fouché, who
“transformed it into a beacon of religious terror. Fouché, him=
self
a former priest, came from the Vendée, where he had witnessed the
ability of the clergy to inspire fanatical resistance to the RevolutionR=
17;s
authority. Christianity, he concluded, could not coexist in any form with t=
he
Revolution and, brushing aside what was left of the
‘constitutional’ Church, he inaugurated a civic religion of his=
own
devising with a ‘Feast of Brutus’ on 22 September at which he
denounced ‘religious sophistry’. Fouché particularly
deplored clerical celibacy: it set the clergy apart, and in any case made no
contribution to society’s need for children. Clerics who refused to m=
arry
were ordered to adopt and support orphans or aged citizens. The French peop=
le,
Fouché declared in a manifesto published on 10 October, recognized no
other cult but that of universal morality; and although the exercise of all
creeds was proclaimed to be free and equal, none might henceforth be practi=
sed
in public. Graveyards should exhibit no religious symbols, and at the gate =
of
each would be an inscription Death is an eternal sleep. Thus began t=
he
movement known as dechristianization. Soon afterwards Fouché moved o=
n to
Lyons; but during his weeks in Nevers his work had been watched by Chaumett=
e,
visiting his native town from Paris. He was to carry the idea back to the
capital, where it was energetically taken up by his colleagues at the commu=
ne.
“Other
representatives on mission, meanwhile, had also taken to attacking the outw=
ard
manifestations of the Catholic religion. At Abbeville, on the edge of
priest-ridden Flanders, Dumont favoured forced public abjuration of orders,
preferably by constitutional clergy whose continued loyalty to the Revoluti=
on
could only now be proved by such gestures. On October 7 in Rheims, Ruhl
personally supervised the smashing of the phial holding the sacred oil of
Clovis used to anoint French kings. None of this was authorized by the
Convention: on the other hand the adoption on 5 October of a new republican
calendar marked a further stage in the divorce between the French State and=
any
sort of religion. Years would no longer be numbered from the birth of Chris=
t,
but from the inauguration of the French Republic on 22 September 1792. Thus it was already the Year II. T=
here would
be twelve thirty-day months with evocative, seasonal names; each month would
have three ten-day weeks (décades) ending in a rest-day (d=
écadi).
Sundays therefore disappeared and could not be observed unless they coincid=
ed
with the less-frequent décadis. The introduction of the syste=
m at
this moment only encouraged representatives on mission to intensify their l=
ead;
and dechristianization became an important feature of the Terror in all the
former centres of rebellion when they were brought to heel. Once launched it
was eminently democratic. Anybody could join in smashing images, vandalizing
churches (the very word was coined to describe this outburst of iconoclasm),
and theft of vestments to wear in blasphemous mock ceremonies. Those needing
pretexts could preach national necessity when they tore down bells or walked
off with plate that could be recast into guns or coinage. Such activities w=
ere
particular favourites among the Revolutionary Armies. The Parisian detachme=
nts
marching to Lyons left a trail of pillaged and closed churches, and smoulde=
ring
bonfires of ornaments, vestments, and holy pictures all along their route.
Other contributions took more organization, but Jacobin clubs and popular
societies, not to mention local authorities, were quite happy to orchestrate
festivals of reason, harmony, wisdom, and other such worthy attributes to
former churches; and to recruit parties of priests who, at climactic moment=
s in
these ceremonies, would renounce their vows and declare themselves ready to
marry. If their choice fell on a former nun, so much the better.
“When Chau=
metter
returned from Nevers, the Paris Commune made dechristianization its official
policy. On 23 October the images of kings on the front of Notre-Dame were
ordered to be removed: the royal tombs at Saint-Denis had already been empt=
ied
and desecrated by order of the Convention in August. The word Saint
began to be removed from street names, and busts of Marat replaced religious
statues. Again the Convention appeared to be encouraging the trend when it
decreed, on 20 October, that any priest (constitutional or refractory)
denounced for lack of civisme by six citizens would be subject to
deportation, and any previously sentenced to deportation but found in France
should be executed. Clerical dress was now forbidden in Paris, and on 7
November Gobel, the elected constitutional bishop, who had already sanction=
ed
clerical marriage for his clergy, came with eleven of them to the Convention
and ceremonially resigned his see. Removing the episcopal insignia, he put =
on a
cap of liberty and declared that the only religion of a free people should =
be
that of Liberty and Equality. In the next few days the handful of priests w=
ho
were deputies followed his example. Soon Grégoire, constitutional bi=
shop
of Blois, was the only deputy left clinging to his priesthood and clerical
dress. The sections meanwhile were passing anti-clerical motions, and on 12
November that of Gravilliers, whose idol had so recently been Jacques Roux,
sent a deputation to the Convention draped in ‘ornaments from churche=
s in
their district, spoils taken from the superstitious credulity of our
forefathers and repossessed by the reason of free men’ to announce th=
at
all churches in the section had been closed. This display followed a great
public ceremony held in Notre-Dame, or the ‘Temple of Reason’, =
as
it was now redesignated, on the tenth. On this occasion relays of patriotic
maidens in virginal white paraded reverently before a temple of philosophy
erected where the high altar had stood. From it emerged, at the climax of t=
he
ceremony, a red-capped female figure representing Liberty. Appreciatively
described by an official recorder of the scene as ‘a masterpiece of
nature’, in daily life she was an actress; but in her symbolic role s=
he
led the officials of the commune to the Convention, where she received the
fraternal embrace of the president and secretaries.
“However
carefully choreographed, there was not much dignity about these posturings;=
and
attacks on parish churches and their incumbents (who were mostly now popula=
rly
elected) risked making the Revolution more enemies than friends. Small-town=
and
anti-religious Jacobin zeal, for example, provoked a minor revolt in the Br=
ie
in the second week in December. To shouts of Long live the Catholic
Religion, we want our priests, we want the Mass on Sundays and Holy Days,
crowds of peasants sacked the local club. Several thousands took up arms and
joined the movement, and only a force of National Guards and sansculottes f=
rom
the Revolutionary Army restored order in a district whose tranquillity was
vital to the regular passage of food supplies to the capital from southern
Champagne. But even before this the Committee of Public Safety was growing
anxious about the counter-productive effects of dechristianization. Robespi=
erre
in particular, who [following his teacher, Rousseau] believed that religious
faith was indispensable to orderly, civilized society, sounded the alarm. On
November 21 he denounced anti-religious excesses at the Jacobin club. They
smacked of more fanaticism than they extinguished.[114] The
people believed in a Supreme Being, he warned, whereas atheism was
aristocratic.[115]
At the same time he persuaded the Committee to circularize popular societies
warning them not to fan superstition and fanaticism by persecution. On 6
December, finally, the Convention agreed to reiterate the principle of
religious freedom in a decree which formally prohibited all violence or thr=
eats
against the ‘liberty of cults’. But by then it was too late. The
example of Paris had encouraged Jacobin zealots everywhere, and with the
repression of revolt in full swing and the role of priests in the Vend&eacu=
te;e
particularly notorious, the remaining trappings of religion were too tempti=
ng a
target to ignore. The commune’s response to Robespierre on 23 November
had been to decree the closing of all churches in the capital; and soon loc=
al
authorities were shutting them wholesale throughout the country. By the spr=
ing,
churches were open for public worship only in the remotest corners of Franc=
e,
such as the Jura mountains. By then, perhaps 20,000 priests had been bullied
into giving up their status, and 6,000 had given their renunciation the
ultimate confirmation by marrying. In some areas, such as Provence,
dechristianization only reached its peak in March or April 1794."[116]
On October 31 the Girondi=
sts went
to the guillotine. By the Law of 14 Frumaire (4 December) extreme
centralisation was decreed, heralding the end of the Terror, but accelerati=
ng
the Terror within the central administration itself. In March it was the tu=
rn
of the Hébertists; in April – of the Dantonists. On March 27 t=
he
Revolutionary Army was disbanded. By the end of April the commune had been
purged.
Robespierre was =
still
alive, preaching the new, revolutionary virtue and religion. By the Decree =
of
18 Floréal (7 May) it was declared that the French people recognised=
a
Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul, and that a cult worthy of the
Supreme Being was the fulfilment of a man’s civic duties. Thus the
emphasis was still on man’s civic duties: religion had no
independent function outside the State, in accordance with the words of
Abbé Guillaume Raynal in 1780: “The State, it seems to me, is =
not
made for religion, but religion for the State.”[117]
It was the same =
with
morality, which was now defined to include among the highest virtues “=
;the
hatred of bad faith and tyranny, the punishment of tyrants and traitors, he=
lp
to the unhappy, respect for the weak, protection to the oppressed, to do all
the good possible to others and to be unjust to nobody.”[118]
On 20 Prairial (8
June), Robespierre moved that “the nation should celebrate the Supreme
Being. Thus every locality was given a month to make its preparations. The =
fact
that 8 June was also Whit Sunday may or may not have been a coincidence; if
not, it could have been conceived either as a challenge or as an olive bran=
ch
to Christianity. In the event little direction was given to the localities =
on
how to organize the festival. Some adopted the props of all-too-recent
festivals of reason, merely painting out old slogans with new ones. Others =
used
the opportunity to allow mass to be said publicly for the first time in mon=
ths.
But in Paris the organization of the occasion was entrusted to the experien=
ced
hands of the painter David, himself a member of the Committee of General
Security. He built an artificial mountain in the Champ de Mars, surmounted =
by a
tree of liberty, and thither a mass procession made its way from the Tuiler=
ies.
At its head marched the members of the Convention, led by their president, =
who
happened that week to be Robespierre. He used the opportunity to deliver two
more eulogies of virtue and republican religion, pointedly ignoring, though=
not
failing to notice, the smirks of his fellow deputies at the posturings of t=
his
pseudo-Pope. Others found it no laughing matter. ‘Look at the
bugger,’ muttered Thuriot, an old associate of Danton. ‘It̵=
7;s
not enough for him to be master, he has to be God.’”[119]
Like the other g=
ods of
the revolution[120],
Robespierre did not survive its terror. On 22 Prairial (10 June, 1794),
witnesses and defending counsels were decreed to be no longer necessary in
trials – so no one was safe. On 9 Thermidor (27 June) Robespierre fell
from power. The next day, screaming in terror, he was executed.
While the fall of
Robespierre marked the end of the most fanatical phase in the revolution,
normal life was not restored quickly. “On 18 September 1794, the
Convention had carried the drift of the Revolution since 1790 to a logical
conclusion when it finally renounced the constitutional Church. The Republi=
c,
it decreed, would no longer pay the costs or wages of any cult – not =
that
it had been paying them in practice for a considerable time already. It mea=
nt the
end of state recognition for the Supreme Being, a cult too closely identifi=
ed
with Robespierre. But above all it marked the abandonment of the
Revolution’s own creation, the constitutional Church. For the first t=
ime
ever in France, Church and State were now formally separated. To some this
decree looked like a return to dechristianization, and here and there in the
provinces there were renewed bursts of persecution against refractories. But
most read it, correctly, as an attempt to deflect the hostility of those st=
ill
faithful to the Church from the Republic. The natural corollary came with t=
he
decree of 21 February 1795 which proclaimed the freedom of all cults to wor=
ship
as they liked. The tone of the law was grudging, and it was introduced with
much gratuitous denigration of priestcraft and superstition. Religion was
defined as a private affair, and local authorities were forbidden to lend it
any recognition or support. All outward signs of religious affiliation in t=
he
form of priestly dress, ceremonies, or church bells remained strictly
forbidden. The faithful would have to buy or rent their own places of worsh=
ip
and pay their own priests or ministers…”[121]
The
French Revolution: (3) Babeuf and the Directory
Let us summarise=
the
effects of the revolution so far. “Where the Church was concerned,=
221;
writes Hampson, “the Civil Constitution of 1790 had the social effect=
of
a Reformation, in the sense that it deprived a wealthy corporate institutio=
n of
its autonomous position within the state. Politically, this was the opposit=
e of
a Reformation, since it destroyed the basis of the Gallican Church and made=
the
French clergy dependent upon Rome.”[122]
“Nobles we=
re
never proscribed as such and their property was not confiscated unless they
went into exile or were condemned for political offences. Some noble famili=
es
suffered very heavy casualties during the Terror; others survived without m=
uch
difficulty. The ‘anti-feudal’ legislation of the Constituent
Assembly bore heavily on those who income was derived mainly from manorial
dues; those whose wealth came from their extensive acres may have gained mo=
re
from the abolition of tithes than they lost from increased taxation. Some m=
ade
profitable investments in church land which were the ‘best buy’=
of the
revolution since massive inflation reduced to a nominal figure the price pa=
id
by those who had opted to buy in instalments…Over the country as a wh=
ole
the proportion of land owned by the nobility was somewhat reduced by the
revolution but in most parts a substantial proportion of the landowners sti=
ll
came from the nobility, and the land was the most important source of wealth
until well into the nineteenth century.”[123]
“The urban
radicals whom the more radical – but nevertheless gentlemanly –
revolutionary leaders liked to eulogize as sans-culottes, fared badly…=
; As
an observer reported in 1793, ‘That class has suffered badly; it took=
the
Bastille, was responsible for the tenth of August and so on…
Hébert and Marat, two of the most extreme of the radical journalists,
agreed that the sans-culottes were worse off than they had been in 1789. So=
on,
of course, all this was going to change… but it never did.”[124]
“The revolution did=
not
‘give the land to the peasants’. They already possessed about a
quarter of it, although most of them did not own enough to be self-sufficie=
nt.
The Church lands were mostly snapped up by the wealthier farmers or by outs=
ide
speculators… The prevailing economic theories persuaded the various
assemblies to concentrate very heavily on direct taxation, most of which fe=
ll
on the land. Requisitioning of food, horses and carts was borne exclusively=
by
the peasants….
“Once agai=
n the
revolution greatly increased the impact of the state on the day-to-day life=
of
the community. This was especially obvious where religion was concerned.=
221;[125]
After Thermidor =
and
the execution of Robespierre, a new phase of the Revolution began. In 1795 a
committee of five, the Directory, was established. Fearing coups from the
royalist right as well as the Jacobin left, it continued the slow torture of
the Dauphin (Louis XVII), who died in prison on June 10.
“With the
Directory,” writes Edmund Wilson, “the French Revolution had pa=
ssed
into the period of reaction which was to make possible the domination of Bo=
naparte.
The great rising of the bourgeoisie, which, breaking out of the feudal form=
s of
the monarchy, dispossessing the nobility and the clergy, had presented itse=
lf
to society as a movement of liberation, had ended by depositing the wealth =
in
the hands of a relatively small number of people and creating a new conflic=
t of
classes. With the reaction against the Terror, the ideals of the Revolution
were allowed to go by the board. The five politicians of the Directory and =
the
merchants and financiers allied with them were speculating in confiscated
property, profiteering in army supplies, recklessly inflating the currency =
and
gambling on the falling gold louis. And in the meantime, during the winter =
of
1795-96, the working people of Paris were dying of hunger and cold in the
streets.”[126]
This situation l= ed to attempts to overthrow the government, the most significant of which was tha= t of “Gracchus” Babeuf, who “rallied around him those elements= of the Revolution who were trying to insist on its original aims. In his paper= , The Tribune of the People, he denounced the new constitution of 1795, which= had abolished universal suffrage and imposed a high property qualification. He demanded not merely political but also economic equality. He declared that = he would prefer civil war itself to ‘this horrible concord which strangl= es the hungry’. But the men who had expropriated the nobles and the Chur= ch remained loyal to the principle of property itself. The Tribune of the People was stopped, and Babeuf and his associates were sent to prison.<= o:p>
“While Bab=
euf
was in jail, his seven-year-old daughter died of hunger. He had managed to
remain poor all his life. His popularity had been all with the poor. His
official posts had earned him only trouble. Now, as soon as he was free aga=
in,
he proceeded to found a political club, which opposed the policies of the
Directory and which came to be known as the Society of the Equals. They
demanded in a Manifesto of the Equals (not, however, at that time made pu=
blic)
that there should be ‘no more individual property in land; the land
belonged to no one… We declare that we can no longer endure, with the
enormous majority of men, labor and sweat in the service and for the benefi=
t of
a small minority. It is has now been long enough and too long that less tha=
n a
million individuals have been disposing of that which belongs to more than
twenty millions of their kind… Never has a vaster design been conceiv=
ed
or put into execution. Certain men of genius, certain sages, have spoken of=
it
from time to time in a low and trembling voice. Not one of them has had the
courage to tell the whole truth… People of France! Open your eyes and
your heart to the fullness of happiness. Recognize and proclaim with us the
Republic of Equals!’
“The Socie=
ty of
Equals was also suppressed; Bonaparte himself closed the club. But, driven
underground, they now plotted an insurrection; they proposed to set up a new
directory. And they drafted a constitution that provided for ‘a great
national community of goods’ and worked out with some precision the
mechanics of a planned society. The cities were to be deflaed and the
population distributed in villages. The State was to ‘seize upon the
new-born individual, watch over his early moments, guarantee the milk and c=
are
of his mother and bring him to the maison nationale, where he was to
acquire the virtue and enlightenment of a true citizen.’ There was th=
us
to be equal education for all. All able-bodied persons were to work, and the
work that was unpleasant or arduous was to be accomplished by everybodyR=
17;s
taking turns. The necessities of life were to be supplied by the government,
and the people were to eat at communal tables. The government was to control
all foreign trade and to pass on everything printed.
“In the
meantime, the value of the paper money had depreciated almost to zero. The
Directory tried to save the situation by converting the currency into land
warrants, which were at a discount of eight-two per cent the day they were
issued; and there was a general belief on the part of the public that the
government had gone bankrupt. There were in Paris along some five hundred
thousand people in need of relief. The Babouvistes placarded the city with a
manifesto…; they declared that Nature had given to every man an equal
right to the enjoyment of every good, and it was the purpose of society to
defend that right, that Nature had imposed on every man the obligation to w=
ork,
and that no one could escape this obligation without committing a crime; th=
at
in ‘a true society’ there would be neither rich nor poor; that =
the
object of the Revolution had been to destroy every inequality and to establ=
ish
the well-being of all; that they Revolution was therefore ‘not
finished’, and that those who had done away with the Constitution of =
1793
were guilty of lese majesté against the people…
“Babeuf=
217;s
‘insurrectionary committee’ had agents in the army and the poli=
ce,
and they were doing such effective work that the government tried to send i=
ts
troops out of Paris, and, when they refused to obey, disbanded them. During=
the
early days of May, 1796, on the eve of the projected uprising, the Equals w=
ere
betrayed by a stool pigeon and their leaders were arrested and put in jail.=
The
followers of Babeuf made an attempt to rally a sympathetic police squadron,=
but
were cut down by a new Battalion of the Guard which had been pressed into
service for the occasion.
“Babeuf wa=
s made
a public example by being taken to Vendôme in a cage – an indig=
nity
which not long before had filled the Parisians with furty when the Austrians
had inflicted it on a Frenchman…
“[At this =
trial]
the vote, after much disagreement, went against Babeuf. One of his sons had
smuggled in to him a tin dagger made out of a candlestick, and when he hear=
d the
verdict pronounced, he stabbed himself in the Roman fashion, but only wound=
ed
himself horribly and did not die. The next morning (May 27, 1797) he went to
the guillotine. Of his followers thirty were executed and many sentenced to
penal servitude or deportation.”[127]
The
French Revolution: (4) Napoleon Bonaparte
Thus the revolut=
ion
appeared to have lost its way, consumed in poverty, corruption and mutual
blood-letting. It was saved by a young soldier, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was=
as
sincerely faithful to the spirit of the revolution as Cromwell had been. Ma=
dame
de Stael called Robespierre on horseback After all, he came from Corsica, w=
hich
in 1755 had successfully rebelled from Genoa, and for which Rousseau wrote =
one
of his most seminal works, Project de constitution pour la Corse, in
1765. But, like Cromwell (and Caesar), he found that in order to save the
republic he had to take control of it and rule it like a king.
His chance came =
on 19
Brumaire (November 10), 1799, when
he overthrew the Directory (he described parliamentarism as “h=
ot
air”), and frightened the two elective assemblies into submission. On
December 13 a new constitution was proclaimed with Bonaparte as the first of
three Consuls with full executive powers. And on December 15 the three Cons=
uls
declared: “Citizens, the Revolution is established upon its original
principles: it is consummated…”[128]
Paul Johnson wri=
tes,
“the new First Consul was far more powerful than Louis XIV, since he
dominated the armed forces directly in a country that was now organized as a
military state. All the ancient restraints on divine-right kingship –=
the
Church, the aristocracy and its resources, the courts, the cities and their
charters, the universities and their privileges, the guilds and their
immunities – all had been swept away by the Revolution, leaving Franc=
e a
legal blank on which Bonaparte could stamp the irresistible force of his
personality.”[129]=
But, again like =
Caesar
and Cromwell, he could never confess to being a king in the traditional sen=
se.
Under him, in Davies’ phrase, “a pseudo-monarchy headed
pseudo-democratic institutions; and an efficient centralized administration=
ran
on a strange cocktail of legislative leftovers and bold innovation.”[130] So=
, as
J.M. Roberts writes, while Napoleon reinstituted monarchy, “it was in=
no
sense a restoration. Indeed, he took care so to affront the exiled Bourbon
family that any reconciliation with it was inconceivable. He sought popular
approval for the empire in a plebiscite and got it.[131]
=
;
This was a monar=
chy
Frenchmen had voted for; it rested on popular sovereignty, that is, the
Revolution. It assumed the consolidation of the Revolution which the Consul=
ate
had already begun. All the great institutional reforms of the 1790s were
confirmed or at least left intact; there was no disturbance of the land sal=
es
which had followed the confiscation of Church property, no resurrection of =
the
old corporations, no questioning of the principle of equality before the la=
w.
Some measures were even taken further, notably when each department was giv=
en
an administrative head, the prefect, who was in his powers something like o=
ne
of the emergency emissaries of the Terror (many former revolutionaries beca=
me
prefects)…”[132]
Cromwell had esc=
hewed
the trappings and ceremonial of monarchy, but Napoleon embraced them with
avidity. The trend towards monarchy and hierarchy was already evident
elsewhere; and “earlier than is generally thought,” writes Phil=
ip
Mansel, “the First Consul Bonaparte aligned himself with this monarch=
ical
trend, acquiring in succession a guard (1799), a palace (1800), court
receptions and costumes (1800-02), a household (1802-04), a dynasty (1804),
finally a nobility (1808)… The proclamation of the empire in May 1804,
the establishment of the households of the Emperor, the Empress and the
Imperial Family in July, the coronation by the pope in December of that yea=
r,
were confirmations of an existing monarchical reality.”[133]
Moreover, Napole=
on
spread monarchy throughout Europe. In the wake of his conquests, and exclud=
ing
the direct annexations to the French Empire, the kingdoms and Grand Duchies=
of
Italy, Venice, Rome, Naples, Lucca, Dubrovnik, Holland, Mainz, Bavaria,
Württemburg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Westphalia and Spain were=
all
established or re-established with still greater monarchical power - and all
ruled by Napoleon’s relations by blood or marriage. According to
Stendhal, Napoleon’s court “totally corrupted” him “=
;and
exalted his amour propre to the state of a disease… He was on =
the
point of making Europe one vast monarchy.”[134]
“As one of=
his
secretaries Baron Meneval wrote, he saw himself as ‘the pillar of roy=
alty
in Europe’. On January 18th, 1813, he wrote to his brother
Jerome that his enemies, by appealing to popular feeling, represented
‘upheavals and revolutions… pernicious doctrines.’ In
Napoleon’s opinion his fellow monarchs were traitors to ‘their =
own
cause’ when in 1813 they began to desert the French Empire, or in 181=
4 refused
to accept his territorial terms for peace…”[135]
Jocelyn Hunt wri=
tes:
“Kings before 1791 were said to be absolute but were limited by all k=
inds
of constraints and controls. The Church had an almost autonomous status.
Bonaparte ensured that the Church was merely a branch of the civil service.
Kings were anointed by the Church, and thus owed their authority to God:
Bonaparte took power through his own strength, camouflaged as ‘the
General Will’ which, as Correlli Barnett acidly remarks, ‘became
synonymous with General Bonaparte’.[136]
Indeed, when he became emperor in 1804, he crowned himself...
“The First
Consul’s choice of ministers was a far more personal one than had been
possible for the kings of France. Bonaparte established a system of meeting=
his
ministers individually, in order to give his instructions. In the same way,
Bonaparte chose which ‘ordinary’ citizens he would consult; kin=
gs
of France had mechanisms for consulting ‘the people’ but these =
had
fallen into disuse and thus, when the Estates General met in 1789, the effe=
ct
was revolutionary. Bonaparte’s legislative body was, until 1814,
submissive and compliant.…
“Police co=
ntrol
and limitations on personal freedom had been a focus of condemnation by the
Philosophes before the Revolution, but had not been entirely efficient: a w=
hole
industry of importing and distributing banned texts had flourished in the 1=
770s
and 1780s. Bonaparte’s police were more thorough, and so swingeing we=
re
the penalties that self-censorship rapidly became the safest path for a
newspaper to take. Bonaparte closed down sixty of the seventy-three newspap=
ers
in Paris in January, 1800, and had a weekly summary prepared of all printed
material, but he was soon able to tell his Chief of Police, Fouché,
‘They only print what I want them to.’[137] In=
the
same way, the hated lettres de cachet appear limited and inefficient
when compared to Bonaparte’s and Fouché’s record of poli=
ce
spies, trials without jury and imprisonment without trial. Bonaparte’s
brief experience as a Jacobin leader in Ajaccio had taught him how to
recognise, and deal with, potential opponents.[138]
“The judic=
iary
had stood apart from the kings of the ancien régime: while the
King was nominally the supreme Judge, the training of lawyers and judges had
been a matter for the Parlements, with their inherent privileges and
mechanisms. The Parlements decided whether the King’s laws were
acceptable within the fundamental laws of France. Under the Consulate, there
were no such constraints on the legislator. The judges were his appointees,=
and
held office entirely at his pleasure; the courts disposed of those who oppo=
sed
or questioned the government, far more rapidly that had been possible in the
reign of Louis XVI. Imprisonment and deportation became regularly used
instruments of control under Bonaparte.
“Kings of =
France
were fathers to their people and had a sense of duty and service. Bonaparte,
too, believed that he was essential to the good and glory of France, but was
able to make his own decisions about what constituted the good of France in=
a
way which was not open to the king. Finally, while the monarchy of France w=
as
hereditary and permanent, and the position of First Consul was supposed to =
be
held for ten years, Bonaparte’s strength was demonstrated when he cha=
nged
his own constitution, first to give him the role for life and then to becom=
e a
hereditary monarch. All in all, no monarch of the ancien régime
had anything approaching the power which Bonaparte had been permitted to ta=
ke
for himself…
“When a Ro= yalist bomb plot was uncovered in December, 1800, Bonaparte seized the opportunity= to blame it on the Jacobins, and many were guillotined, with over a hundred mo= re being exiled or imprisoned. The regime of the Terror had operated in similar ways to remove large numbers of potential or actual opponents. Press censor= ship and the use of police spies ensured that anti-government opinions were not publicly aired. The Declaration of the Rights of Man had guaranteed freedom= of expression; but this freedom had already been eroded before Bonaparte’= ;s coup. The Terror had seen both moral and political censorship, and the Directory had on several occasions exercised its constitutional right to ce= nsor the press. Bonaparte appears merely to have been more efficient… <= o:p>
“Bonaparte
certainly held power without consulting the French people; he took away man=
y of
the freedoms they had been guaranteed in 1789; he taxed them more heavily t=
han
they had been taxed before. [In 1803 he wrote:] ‘I haven’t been
able to understand yet what good there is in an opposition. Whatever it may
say, its only result is to diminish the prestige of authority in the eyes of
the people’.”[139]
In 1804, he even
declared himself emperor with the name Napoleon, after which Beethoven tore=
out
the title-page of his Eroica symphony, which had been dedicat=
ed
to him, and said: “So he too is nothing but a man. Now he also will
trample all human rights underfoot, and only pander to his own ambition; he
will place himself above everyone else and become a tyrant…”[140] As
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “Absolute government found huge scope for
its rebirth [in] that man who was to be both the consummator and the nemesi=
s of
the Revolution.”[141] So
Napoleon was undoubtedly a despot, but a despot who could claim many preced=
ents
for his despotism in the behaviour of the Jacobins and Directory. And if he=
was
not faithful to the forms of the revolution in its early phase, replacing
democracy (of a despotic kind) with monarchy (of a populist kind), he
nevertheless remained faithful to its spirit.
And what was that spirit? On the one
hand, the principle that nobody and nothing should be independent of the St=
ate
– in other words, the principle of totalitarianism. And on the other,=
the
principle that the Nation was the supreme value, and serving and dying for =
the
Nation the supreme glory.
And yet “at
bottom,” as Johnson notes, “Bonaparte despised the French, or
perhaps it would be more exact to say the Parisians, the heart of the
‘political nation’. He thought of them, on the basis of his exp=
erience
during the various phases of the Revolution, as essentially frivolous.̶=
1;[142] The
truth is, therefore, that it was neither the State nor the Nation that
Bonaparte exalted above all, – although he greatly increased the wors=
hip
of both State and Nation in subsequent European history, – but himsel=
f.
So the spirit th=
at
truly reigned in the Napoleonic era can most accurately be described as =
the
spirit of the man-god, of the Antichrist, of whom Bonaparte himself, as=
the
Russian Holy Synod quite rightly said, was the incarnation and forerunner. =
This
antichristian quality is most clearly captured in Madame De Staël̵=
7;s
characterization: “I had the disturbing feeling that no emotion of the
heart could ever reach him. He regards a human being like a fact or a thing,
never as an equal person like himself. He neither hates nor loves… The
force of his will resides in the imperturbable calculations of his egotism.=
He
is a chess-master whose opponents happen to be the rest of humanity…
Neither pity nor attraction, nor religion nor attachment would ever divert =
him
from his ends… I felt in his soul cold steel, I felt in his mind a de=
ep
irony against which nothing great or good, even his own destiny, was proof;=
for
he despised the nation which he intended to govern, and no spark of enthusi=
asm
was mingled with his desire to astound the human race.”[143]
Napoleon
and Catholicism
The Revolution h=
ad
already swept away all the complex structures of feudalism, thereby prepari=
ng
the way for the totalitarian state. But Napoleon went further. Thus in addi=
tion
to the measures discussed above, he abolished trade unions, introduced a
standardised system of weights and measures, and a standardised system of
education and legislation, the famous Code Napoléon. Everythi=
ng,
from religion and charity to economics and the government of friendly
sister-republics, such as Holland, had to be controlled from the centre. And
the centre was Napoleon.
Napoleon’s
attitude towards religion was on the one hand respectful and on the other h=
and
manipulative and utilitarian. His respectfulness is revealed in the followi=
ng
remark: “There are only two forces in the world: the sword and the
spirit; by spirit I mean the civil and religious institutions; in the long =
run
the sword is always defeated by the spirit.”[144] On=
the
other hand, his essentially unbelieving, utilitarian attitude is revealed in
the following: “I see in religion not the mystery of the Incarnation =
but
the mystery of order in society”.[145]
“What is it that makes the poor man take it for granted that ten chim=
neys
smoke in my palace while he dies of cold – that I have ten changes of
raiment in my wardrobe while he is naked – that on my table at each m=
eal
there is enough to sustain a family for a week? It is religion, which says to him =
that in
another life I shall be his equal, indeed that he has a better chance of be=
ing
happy there than I have.”[146]
In other words,
religion was powerful, and as such had to be respected. But it was powerful=
not
because it was true, but because it was a – perhaps the –
major means of establishing order in society. More particularly, it was the
major means of establishing obedience to his rule – which is w=
hy
he issued an Imperial Catechism whose purpose was to “bind by religio=
us
sanctions the conscience of the people to the august person of the
Emperor”[147]:
A: Because God… has =
made him
the agent of His power on earth. Thus it is that to honour and serve our
Emperor is to honour and serve God Himself.[148]
Napoleon, writes
Doyle, “never made the mistake of underestimating either the power of
religion or the resilience of the Church. Under orders in the spring of 179=
6 to
march on Rome to avenge the murder by a Roman mob of a French envoy, he was
confronted by a Spanish emissary from the pontiff. ’I told him [the
Spaniard reported], if you people take it into your heads to make the pope =
say
the slightest thing against dogma or anything touching on it, you are decei=
ving
yourselves, for he will never do it. You might, in revenge, sack, burn and
destroy Rome, St. Peter’s etc. but religion will remain standing in s=
pite
of your attacks. If all you wish is that the pope urge peace in general, and
obedience to legitimate power, he will willingly do it. He appeared to me
captivated by this reasoning…’ Certainly he continued while in
Italy to treat the Pope with more restraint than the Directory had ordered:=
and
when, early the next year, the Cispadane Republic was established in
territories largely taken from the Holy See, he advised its founders that:
‘Everything is to be done by degrees and with gentleness. Religion is=
to
be treated like property.’ Devoid of any personal faith, in Egypt he =
even
made parade of following Islam in the conviction that it would strengthen
French rule. By the time he returned to Europe, it was clear that Pope Pius=
VI
would not after all be the last…
“This appr=
oach
bore one important fruit: in his Christmas sermon for 1797 the new Pope, Pi=
us
VII, declared that Christianity was not incompatible with democracy –=
a
very major concession to the revolution that later Popes would take back.
“On his se=
cond
entry into Milan, in June 1800, he convoked the city’s clergy to the
great cathedral, and declared, even before Marengo was fought: ‘It is=
my
firm intention that the Christian, Catholic and Roman religion shall be
preserved in its entirety, that it shall be publicly performed… No
society can exist without morality; there is no good morality without relig=
ion.
It is religion alone, therefore, that gives to the State a firm and durable
support…’”[149]
Religious tolera= tion was both in accordance with the ideals of democracy and politically expedie= nt. Thus to the same clergy convocation he said: “The people is sovereign= ; if it wants religion, respect its will.” And to his own Council of State= he said: “My policy is to govern men as the majority wish. That, I belie= ve, is the way to recognize the sovereignty of the people. It was… by tur= ning Muslim that I gained a hold in Egypt, by turning ultramontane that I won ov= er people in Italy. If I were governing Jews, I should rebuild Solomon’s temple.”[150]. <= o:p>
It is in this
astonishingly cynical attitude to religion that Napoleon reveals his modern=
ity.
It is what made him perhaps the closest forerunner to the Antichrist that h=
ad
yet appeared on the stage of world history, and closer even, in some ways, =
than
Lenin or Stalin. For the Antichrist will not – at first – perse=
cute
religion; he will rather try to be the champion of all religions =
211;
in order to subdue them all to his will. He will very likely be an
ecumenist as Napoleon was. And he will rebuild Solomon’s temple…=
;
Napoleon’s=
first
task in the religious sphere was to heal the breach between the Constitutio=
nal
Church, which had accepted the revolution, and the non-jurors, who had reje=
cted
it. Only the non-jurors were recognised by the Pope, so an agreement had to=
be
reached with Rome. Finally, on July 15, 1801, a Concordat was signed.
“This
document,” writes Cronin, “opens with a preamble describing Rom=
an
Catholicism as ‘the religion of the great majority of the French
people’ and the religion professed by the consuls. Worship was to be =
free
and public. The Pope, in agreement with the Government, was to re-map dioce=
ses
in such a way as to reduce their number by more than half to sixty. The hol=
ders
of bishoprics were to resign and if they declined to do so, were to be repl=
aced
by the Pope. The First Consul was to appoint new bishops; the Pope was to
invest them. The Government was to place at the disposal of bishops all the
un-nationalized churches necessary for worship, and to pay bishops and
curés a suitable salary.
“The Conco=
rdat
was an up-to-date version of the old Concordat, which had regulated the Chu=
rch
in France for almost 300 years. But it was less Gallican, that is, it gave =
the
French hierarchy less autonomy. Napoleon conceded to the Pope not only the
power of investing bishops, which he had always enjoyed, but the right, in
certain circumstances, to depose them, which was something new. Napoleon did
this in order to be able to effect a clean sweep of bishops.
“Napoleon =
did
not discuss the Concordat beforehand with his Council of State. When he did
show it to them they criticized it as insufficiently Gallican. The assembli=
es,
they predicted, would never make it law unless certain riders were added.
Finally seventy ‘organic articles’ were drawn up and added to t=
he
Concordat. For example, all bulls from Rome were to be subject to the
Government’s placet, one of which asserted that the Pope must
abide by the decisions of an ecumenical council…”[151]
In April, 1802,
Napoleon reopened the churches in France, which proved to be one of his most
popular measures, and it enabled him to enlist the Church in support of his=
government
– as did, of course, his coronation by the Pope. Moreover, notes John=
son,
“by making peace with the Church, he prepared the way for a
reconciliation with the old landowners and aristocrats who had been driven =
into
exile by the Revolution, and whom he wanted back to provide further legitim=
acy
to his regime.”[152]
“But even =
while
seeking the Church’s support,” writes Cronin, “Napoleon k=
ept
firmly to the principle that the temporal and spiritual are two separate
realms, and had to be kept separate in France. He might easily have used his
growing authority to subordinate the Church to the State, but although he w=
as
occasionally tempted to do so, he quickly drew back… Equally, Napoleon
refrained from subordinating the State to the Church. When bishops urged hi=
m to
shut all shops and cabarets on Sundays so that the faithful should not be
enticed from Mass, Napoleon replied: ‘The curé’s power
resides in exhortations from the pulpit and in the confessional; police spi=
es
and prisons are bad ways of trying to restore religious
practices.’”[153]
However, while
Napoleon wanted the Church to flourish, he was too fundamentally irreligiou=
s to
allow it to escape the general control of the State. This was made abundant=
ly
clear at his coronation in 1804, when instead of allowing the Pope to crown
him, he took the crown from his hands and crowned himself! “For the
pope’s purposes,” he said to Cardinal Fesch, “I am
Charlemagne… I therefore expect the pope to accommodate his conduct t=
o my
requirements. If he behaves well I shall make no outward changes; if not, I
shall reduce him to the status of bishop of Rome…”[154] Not
for nothing did Napoleon say:
Again, he appoin=
ted a
Minister of Religions to solve the day-to-day problems of the Church, and f=
ixed
the salary of curés at 500 francs. Then, in 1809, he occupied Rome a=
nd
the Papal States and removed Pius from his position as ruler in exchange fo=
r a
handsome salary. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, “altho=
ugh
a descendant of David, did not want an earthly kingdom…” Pius t=
hen
excommunicated Napoleon for his “blasphemy” and refused to inve=
st
his nominees to vacant bishoprics. Napoleon had still not tamed the rebelli=
ous
priest by the time of his downfall…[156]
Monsieur Emery, =
the
director of Saint-Sulpice, defended the Pope, reminding Napoleon “that
God had given the Pope spiritual power over all Christians. ‘But not
temporal power,’ objected Napoleon. ‘Charlemagne gave him that,=
and
I, as Charlemagne’s successor, intended to relieve him of it. What do=
you
think of that, Monsieur Emery?’ ‘Sire, exactly what Bossuet
thought. In his Declaration du clergé de France he says that =
he
congratulates not only the Roman Church but the Universal Church on the
Pope’s temporal sovereignty because, being independent, he can more
easily exercise his functions as father of all the faithful.’ Napoleon
replied that what was true for Bossuet’s day did not apply in 1811, w=
hen
western Europe was ruled by one man, not disputed by several”.[157]
Thus in France, =
as in
England, the established Church survived the Revolution. The restoration of=
the
one-man-rule went hand-in-hand with the restoration of the Church, if not t=
o a
position of independence, still less “symphony” with the State,=
at
any rate of greater influence. In the longer term, however, the Catholic
Church’s authority and influence continued to decline…
With regard to t=
he
Nation, Napoleon managed to persuade his fellow-countrymen that everything =
he
did was for the glory and honour of France, and that nothing was more impor=
tant
than the glory and honour of France. And so while his despotism angered some
Frenchmen, the tickling of their pride was ample compensation, and enabled =
them
reconcile themselves with the loss of their freedom. “As Frenchmen
accorded more and more weight to Napoleon’s wishes, so the notion of
honour came to the fore in the French Republic: honour and its sister conce=
pt,
glory, patriotism à outrance and the chivalry that had made
Napoleon crown Josephine…”[158]
If the nation wa=
s the
new Church, and Napoleon its new Christ, the revolution itself was the Holy
Spirit. It blew where it wished, overthrowing kings, liberating subject peo=
ples
and making them into “real” nations. This liberation of nations=
was
conceived as being a democratic, egalitarian process; it by no means implied
the superiority of any one nation over the others, which would simply be a
repetition, on the collective level, of the despotism that the revolution h=
ad
come to destroy. The religion of the French revolution was a universalist
religion based on equal rights for all men and all nations. It was believed
that once the kings had been removed, the general will of each nation would
reveal itself, spreading peace and harmony not only within, but also betwee=
n,
nations. Thus “sooner or later,” said Mirabeau to the National
Assembly, “the influence of a nation that… has reduced the art =
of
living to the simple notions of liberty and equality – notions endowed
with irresistible charm for the human heart, and propagated in all the
countries of the world – the influence of such a nation will undoubte=
dly
conquer the whole of Europe for Truth, Moderation and Justice, not immediat=
ely
perhaps, not in a single day…”[159]
But it was not l=
ong
before such noble sentiments were being transformed into a purely pagan pri=
de.
“’You are, among the nations, what Hercules was amongst the
heroes,’ Robespierre assured his countrymen. ‘Nature has made y=
ou
sturdy and powerful; your strength matches your virtue and your cause is th=
at
of the gods.’ France was unique in her destiny, she was La Grande
Nation, and all interests were necessarily subordinate to hers. Her ser=
vice
was the highest calling, since it naturally benefited mankind.”[160]
Soon it became e=
vident
to other nations, whether those bordering France or her overseas colonies, =
that
the French believed not so much in the Nation (i.e. any and every
nation) as the Nation (one particular nation, the only truly Great
Nation) – which could only be France. Thus in 1802 Napoleon himse=
lf
said: “Never will the French Nation give chains to men whom it has on=
ce
recognized as free.”[161] And
yet in the very same year, when the former French colony of Haiti became the
first country to declare its freedom in the wake of the revolution, Napoleon
tried to reintroduce slavery there, and his troops were defeated by black
soldiers singing the Marseillaise...[162]
And that was onl=
y the
beginning. In the next thirteen years Napoleon created a swathe of suffering
and destruction throughout Europe from Lisbon to Moscow that had not been s=
een
since the invasions of the Huns and the Goths. In retrospect, the seemingly
irrational and chaotic system of old Europe, whereby kings could buy and se=
ll
territories to which they were quite unrelated by birth or upbringing, turn=
ed
out to have kept the peace far better than the system of more clearly defin=
ed, homogeneous
nation-states that emerged as a result of the Napoleonic wars. This is not =
to
say, of course, that there were no wars under the old system. But they tend=
ed
to be short in duration, with relatively few casualties, which were mainly
confined to the warrior class, and they were very quickly patched up by some
redistribution of territories among the monarchs. By contrast, the
revolutionary wars that began after 1792 were more like the religious wars =
of
pre-1648 vintage: much bloodier and crueller, involving far greater casualt=
ies
among the civilian populations.[163]
Moreover, they never came to a real end, since the losers felt bound to rec=
over
the territories lost and avenge the wounds inflicted on their national or
regional pride. After all, if the people, and not the king, was now soverei=
gn,
victory in war had to be won over the people (or rather, the
“enemies” of “the people”) as well as the king. Thu=
s as
Napoleon exported the ideals of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity into neigh=
bouring
countries, their freedom was destroyed, their equality with their
“brothers” who had “liberated” them was jettisoned,=
and
the dream of universal brotherhood became the nightmare of universal war. F=
or
“abroad, liberty simply meant French rule.”[164]
How did the inte=
rnationalist
dream turn into a nationalist nightmare? The problem was partly a conceptual
one: it turned out to be notoriously difficult to define what “the
nation” was, by what criteria it should be defined (territory? religi=
on?
blood? language?). Revolutionary definitions of who was a “patriot=
221;
– that is, the true member of the nation - invariably meant defining
large sections of the population who did not accept this definition or did =
not
come under it as being “aliens” or “traitors” or
“enemies of the people”.
But the problem =
went
deeper: even when a certain degree of unanimity had been achieved in the
definition of the nation, - as Napoleon achieved it for France, for example=
, in
the period 1800-1813, - there were now no accepted limits on the national w=
ill,
no authority higher than the nation itself. This inevitably resulted in
nationalism in the evil sense of the word that has become so tragically
familiar to us in twentieth-century fascism – not a natural pride in
one’s own nation and its achievements, but the exaltation of the nati=
on
to the level of divinity, and of faith in the nation to the level of the tr=
ue
faith, the defence of which justified any and every sacrifice of self and
others. If in “Dark Age” (i.e. Orthodox) and Medieval (i.e. Cat=
holic)
Europe, men had seen in the Church a higher, supranational authority which
arranged “Truces of God” and served, at least in principle, as a
higher court of appeal to which kings and nations submitted, this was now
finally swept away by article three of the Rights of Man, which pitted the
“general wills” of an ever-increasing number of sovereign natio=
ns
against each other in apparently endless and irreconcilable hostility.
Unless, that is,=
they
all recognized France, the revolutionary nation par excellence, as t=
heir
true nation. And there were some who did this; Thomas Jefferson, for exampl=
e,
American ambassador to Paris, said: “Every man has two countries R=
11;
his own, and France.” Others, while not recognizing France as their o=
wn
nation, nevertheless welcomed the conquering French armies into their own l=
and
Thus as late as 1806 the German philosopher Hegel called Napoleon “th=
at
world spirit” and hoped that he would defeat his opponents:
“Everyone prays for the success of the French army”. Such a sub=
stitution
of loyalty to the messianic revolutionary nation of the time rather than
one’s own was to manifest itself again in the twentieth century, when
millions of people around the world betrayed their own country for the sake=
of
the greater glory of the Soviet Union…
However, as
captivation turned to captivity, pious internationalism (or French messiani=
sm)
turned into violent xenophobia, and enthusiasm into disillusion. Among the
nations that had been “forced to be free” by the French, only t=
he
Poles (conveniently protected by Germany from French invasion, and needing
French support against Russia) remained faithful to the Napoleonic vision. =
Doyle writes:
“An exuberant, uncompromising nationalism lay behind France’s
revolutionary expansion in the 1790s: but when the French found, after this
first impact of a nation in arms on its neighbours, was that the neighbours
responded in kind. They found that the doctrine of the sovereignty of the
nation, proclaimed by them at the outset of the Revolution in 1789, could be
turned against them by other peoples claiming their own national sovereignt=
y.
In states long united by custom and language, such as the Dutch Republic, a=
ll
the French example did was to reinforce patriotic sentiments already strong=
. In
areas never before united, like Italy, it created a powerful national senti=
ment
for the first time by showing that archaic barriers and divisions could be
swept away. The first Italian nationalists placed their hopes in French pow=
er
to secure their ends, but from the start their attitude was double-edged.
‘Italy,’ declared the winning entry for an essay competition on=
the
best form of Italian government, sponsored by the new French regime in Mila=
n in
1796, ‘has almost always been the patrimony of foreigners who, under =
the
pretext of protecting us, have consistently violated our rights, and, while
giving us flags and fine-sounding names, have made themselves masters of our
estate. France, Germany and Spain have held lordship over us in turn…=
it
is therefore best to provide… the sort of government capable of oppos=
ing
the maximum of resistance to invasion.’ The tragedy for nationalistic
Italian Jacobins was that, when popular revulsion against the French invade=
rs
swept the peninsula in 1798 and 1799, they found themselves identified with=
the
hated foreigners. Elsewhere, peoples and intellectual nationalists found
themselves more at one; and not the least of the reasons why France’s
most inveterate enemies were able to resist her successfully was the streng=
th
of volunteering. An Austrian call for volunteers against the French produced
150,000 men in 1809. Three years later the Russians were able to supplement
their normal armed forces with over 420,000 more or less willing recruits to
drive out the alien invader. Only nationalism could successfully fight
nationalism: and when it did, as Clausewitz… saw, it would be a fight=
to
the death.”[165]
Again, as Hobsba=
wm
notes, the Anglo-French conflict had “a persistence and stubbornness
unlike any other. Neither side was really – a rare thing in those day=
s,
though a common one today – prepared to settle for less than total
victory”.[166] The
main legacy of the revolution, therefore, was total war. War between
classes, war between nations, war between religions. Such was the “fraternityR=
21;
the revolution of the revolution…
The
Jews and the Revolution
Of all the
nationalisms stirred up by the revolution, the most important was that of t=
he
Jews. In fact, it was the French revolution that gave the Jews the opportun=
ity
to burst through into the forefront of world politics for the first time si=
nce
the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. There were 39,000 of them in France in 178=
9;
most (half according to one estimate, nine-tenths according to another[167]<=
/a>)
were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim living in Alsace and Lorraine, which France
had acquired under the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
“It is
important,” writes Nesta Webster, “to distinguish between these=
two
races of Jews [the Ashkenazi and the Sephardim] in discussing the question =
of
Jewish emancipation at the time of the Revolution. For whilst the Sephardim=
had
shown themselves good citizens and were therefore subject to no persecution=
s,
the Ashkenazim by their extortionate usury and oppressions had made themsel=
ves
detested by the people, so that rigorous laws were enforced to restrain the=
ir
rapacity. The discussions that raged in the National Assembly on the subjec=
t of
the Jewish question related therefore mainly to the Jews of Alsace.”[168]<=
/a>
=
The eighteenth c=
entury
had already witnessed some important changes in the relationship between the
State and Jewry. In England, the Jews had achieved emancipation de facto=
,
if not de jure. This was helped by the small number of Jews in Brita=
in,
and the non-ideological, approach of the British government.
It was a
different matter on the continent, where a more ideological approach prevai=
led.
In 1782 the Masonic Austrian Emperor Joseph II published his Toleranzpat=
ent,
whose purpose was that “all Our subjects without distinction of
nationality and religion, once they have been admitted and tolerated in our
States, shall participate in common in public welfare,… shall enjoy l=
egal
freedom, and encounter no obstacles to any honest way of gaining their
livelihood and of increasing general industriousness… Existing laws
pertaining to the Jewish nation… are not always compatible with these=
Our
most gracious intentions.” Most restrictions on the Jews were removed,
but these new freedoms applied only to the “privileged Jew” =
211;
that is, the Jew whom the State found “useful” in some way R=
11;
and not to the “foreign Jew”. Moreover, even privileged Jews we=
re
not granted the right of full citizenship and craft mastership.[169] For
Joseph wanted to grant tolerance to the Jews, but not full equali=
ty.
As for France,
“already, in 1784, the Jews of Bordeaux had been accorded further
concessions by Louis XVI; in 1776 all Portuguese Jews had been given religi=
ous
liberty and the permission to inhabit all parts of the kingdom. The decree =
of
January 28, 1790, conferring on the Jews of Bordeaux the rights of French
citizens, put the finishing touch to this scheme of liberation. [The Sephar=
dic
Jews of South-West France and papal Avignon, who were already more assimila=
ted
than their Ashkenazi co-religionists in Alsace, were given full citizenship=
in
July, 1790.] But the proposal=
to
extend this privilege to the Jews of Alsace evoked a storm of controversy in
the Assembly and also violent insurrections amongst the Alsace peasants.=
221;[170]
In their first d=
ebate
on the subject, on September 28, 1789, they made a further important
distinction between the nation and the individuals constituting the nation.
Thus Stanislas Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre argued that “there cannot b=
e a
nation within a nation”, so “the Jews should be denied everythi=
ng
as a nation but granted everything as individuals.”[171] A
separate nation of the Jews could not be allowed to exist within Fra=
nce.
For “virtually all – moderates no less than radicals, Dantonist=
s no
less than Robespierrists, Christians as well as deists, pantheists, and
atheists – held that equality of status in the state they were in the=
ir
various ways intent on establishing was bound up of necessity with the
elimination of all groups, classes, or corporations intermediate (and there=
fore
mediating) between the state itself and the citizen.”[172]
Vital writes:
“The immediate issue before the Assembly was the admission of certain
semi-pariah classes – among them actors and public executioners ̵=
1;
to what came to be termed ‘active citizenship’. It was soon
apparent, however, that the issues presented by the Jews were very differen=
t.
It was apparent, too, that it would make no better sense to examine the
Jews’ case in tandem with that of the Protestants. The latter, like t=
he
Jews, were non-Catholics, but their national identity was not in dou=
bt,
nor, therefore, their right to the new liberties being decreed for all.
Whatever else they were, they were Frenchmen. No one in the National Assemb=
ly
thought otherwise. But were the Jews Frenchmen? If they were not, could they
become citizens? The contention of the lead speaker in the debate, Count
Stanislaw de Clermont-Tonnerre, was that the argument for granting them full
rights of citizenship needed to be founded on the most general principles.
Religion was a private affair. The law of the state need not and ought not =
to
impinge upon it. So long as religious obligations were compatible with the =
law
of the state and contravened it in no particular it was wrong to deprive a
person, whose conscience required him to assume such religious obligations,=
of
those rights which it was the duty of all citizens qua citizens to
assume. One either imposed a national religion by main force, so erasing the
relevant clause of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen to
which all now subscribed. Or else one allowed everyone the freedom to profe=
ss
the religious opinion of his choice. Mere tolerance was unacceptable.
‘The system of tolerance, coupled.. to degrading distinctions, is so
vicious in itself, that he who is compelled to tolerate remains as dissatis=
fied
with the law as is he whom it has granted no more than such a form of
tolerance.’ There was no middle way. The enemies of the Jews attacked
them, and attacked him, Clermont-Tonnerre, on the grounds that they were
deficient morally. It was also held of the Jews that they were unsociable, =
that
their laws prescribed usury, that they were forbidden to mix with the Frenc=
h by
marriage or at table or join them in defence of the country or in any other=
common
enterprise. But these reproaches were either unjust or specious. Usury was
blameworthy beyond a doubt, but it was the laws of France that had compelled
the Jews to practise it. And so with most of the other charges. Once the Je=
ws
had title to land and a country of their own the practice of usury would ce=
ase.
So would the unsociability that was held against them. So would much of the=
ir
religious eccentricity [ces travers religieux]. As for the further
argument, that they had judges and laws of their own, why so they did, and =
on
this matter he, Clermont-Tonnerre, would say to his critics (coming to the
passage in his address to the Assembly that would be quoted over and over a=
gain
in the course of the two centuries that followed), that that indeed was imp=
ermissible.
“’As=
a
nation the Jews must be denied everything, as individuals they must be gran=
ted
everything; their judges can no longer be recognized; their recourse must b=
e to
our own exclusively; legal protection for the doubtful laws by which Jewish
corporate existence is maintained must end; they cannot be allowed to creat=
e a
political body or a separate order within the state; it is necessary that t=
hey
be citizens individually.’
“There rem=
ained
the question, what if, as some argued, it was the case that the Jews themse=
lves
had no interest in citizenship? Why in that case, he went on, ‘if the=
y do
not want it, let them say so, in which case expel them [s’ils veul=
ent
ne l’être pas, qu’ils le disent, et alors, qu’on les
bannisse]’. The idea of a society of non-citizens within the state
and a nation within a nation was repugnant to him. But in fact, the speaker
concluded, that was not at all what the Jews wanted. The evidence was to the
contrary. They wished to be incorporated into the nation of France.
“Clermont-Tonnerre was promptly contradicted on this last, vit=
al
point by the abbé Maury. The term ‘Jew’, said the
abbé did not denote a religious sect, but a nation, one which had la=
ws
which it had always followed and by which it wished to continue to abide.
‘To proclaim the Jews citizens would be as if to say that, without
letters of naturalization and without ceasing to be English or Danish,
Englishmen and Danes could become Frenchmen.’ But Maury’s chief
argument was of a moral and social order. The Jews were inherently undesira=
ble,
socially as well as economically. They had been chased out of France, and t=
hen
recalled, no less than seven times – chased out by avarice, as Voltai=
re
had rightly put it, readmitted by avarice once more, but in foolishness as
well.
“’Th=
e Jews
have passed seventeen centuries without mingling with the other nations. Th=
ey
have never engaged in anything but trade in money; they have been the plagu=
e of
the agricultural provinces; not one of them has ever dignified [su ennob=
lir]
his hands by driving a plough. Their laws leave them no time for agricultur=
e;
the Sabbath apart, they celebrate fifty-six more festivals than the Christi=
ans
in each year. In Poland they possess an entire province. Well, then! While =
the
sweat of Christian slaves waters the furrows in which the Jews’ opule=
nce
germinates they themselves, as their fields are cultivated, engage in weigh=
ing
their ducats and calculating how much they can shave off the coinage without
exposing themselves to legal penalties.’
“They have never be=
en
labourers, Maury continued, not even under David and Solomon. And even then
they were notorious for their laziness. Their sole concern was commerce. Wo=
uld
you make soldiers of them, the abbé asked. If you did, you would der=
ive
small benefit from them: they have a horror of celibacy and they marry youn=
g.
He knew of no general who would wish to command an army of Jews either on t=
he
Sabbath – a day on which they never gave battle – or indeed at =
any
other time. Or did the Assembly imagine that they could make craftsmen of t=
hem
when their many festivals and sabbath days presented an insurmountable obst=
acle
to such an enterprise. The Jews held 12 million mortgages in Alsace alone, =
he
informed his colleagues. Within a month of their being granted citizenship =
they
would own half the province outright. In ten years’ time they would h=
ave
‘conquered’ all of it, reducing it to nothing more than a Jewish
colony – upon which the hatred the people of Alsace already bore for =
the
Jews would explode.[173]
“It was no=
t that
he, Maury, wished the Jews to be persecuted. ‘They are men, they are =
our
brothers; anathema on whoever speaks of intolerance!’ Nor need their
religious opinions disturb anyone [!!!]. He joined all others in agreeing t=
hat
they were to be protected. But that did not mean that they could be citizen=
s.
It was as individuals that they were entitled to protection, not as Frenchm=
en.
“Robespier= re took the opposite line, supporting Clermont-Tonnerre. All who fulfilled the= generally applicable conditions of eligibility to citizenship were entitled to the ri= ghts that derived from it, he argued, including the right to hold public office.= And so far as the facts were concerned, much of what Maury had said about the J= ews was ‘infinitely exaggerated’ and contrary to known history. Moreover, to charge the Jews themselves with responsibility for their own persecution at the hands of others, was absurd.
“’Vi=
ces
are imputed to them… But to whom should these vices be imputed if not=
to
ourselves for our injustice?… Let us restore them to happiness, to
country [patrie], and to virtue by restoring them to the dignity of =
men
and citizens; let us reflect that it can never be politic, whatever anyone
might say, to condemn a multitude of men who live among us to degradation a=
nd
oppression.’”[174]
Thus spoke the m=
an who
was soon to lead the most degrading and oppressive régime in European
history to that date. Indeed, it is striking how those who spoke most ferve=
ntly
for the Jews – apart from leaders of the Jewish community such as the
banker Cerfbeer and Isaac Beer – were Freemasons or Illuminati=
.
Thus in the two =
years
before the crucial debate on September 27, 1791, writes General Nechvolodov,
“fourteen attempts were made to give the Jews civic equality and
thirty-five major speeches were given by several orators, among them Mirabe=
au,
Robespierre, Abbé Grégoire, Abbé Sièyes, Camill=
e,
Desmoulins, Vernier, Barnave, Lameth, Duport and others.
“’Now
there is a singular comparison to be made,’ says Abbé Lemann,
‘- all the names which we have just cited and which figure in the =
Moniteur
as having voted for the Jews are also found on the list of Masons… Is
this coincidence not proof of the order given, in the lodges of Paris, to w=
ork
in favour of Jewish emancipation?’
“And yet, =
in
spite of the revolutionary spirit, the National Assembly was very little
inclined to give equality of civil rights to the Jews. Against this reform
there rose up all the deputies from Alsace, since it was in Alsace that the
majority of the French Jews of that time lived….
“But this
opposition in the National Assembly did not stop the Jews. To attain their =
end,
they employed absolutely every means.
“According=
to
Abbé Lemann, these means were the following:
“First mea=
ns:
entreaty. A charm exercised over several presidents of the Assembly. Second:
the influence of gold. Third means: logic. After the National Assembly had
declared the ‘rights of man’, the Jews insisted that these righ=
ts
should logically be applied to them, and they set out their ideas on this
subject with an ‘implacable arrogance’.
“Fourth me= ans: recourse to the suburbs and the Paris Commune, so as to force the National Assembly under ‘threat of violence’ to give the Jews equality.<= o:p>
“’One of their most thorough historians (Graetz),’
says Abbé Lemann, ‘did not feel that he had to hide this
manoeuvre. Exhausted, he says, by the thousand useless efforts they had mad=
e to
obtain civil rights, they thought up a last means. Seeing that it was
impossible to obtain by reason and common sense what they called their righ=
ts,
they resolved to force the National Assembly to approve of their emancipati=
on.
“’To=
this
end, naturally, were expended vast sums, which served to establish the
‘Christian Front’ which they wanted.
“’In= the session of the National Assembly of January 18, 1791, the Duke de Broglie expressed himself completely openly on this subject: ‘Among them,R= 17; he said, ‘there is one in particular who has acquired an immense fort= une at the expense of the State, and who is spending in the town of Paris considerable sums to win supporters of his cause.’ He meant Cerfbeer.=
“At the he=
ad of
the Christian Front created on this occasion were the lawyer Godard and thr=
ee
ecclesiastics: the Abbés Mulot, Bertoliot and Fauchet.
“Abb&eacut=
e;
Fauchet was a well-known illuminatus, and Abbé Mulot – =
the
president of the all-powerful Paris Commune, with the help of which the
Jacobins exerted, at the time desired, the necessary pressure on the Nation=
al
and Legislative Assemblies, and later on the Convention.
“What Greg=
ory,
curé of Embermeuil, was for the Jews in the heart of the National
Assembly, Abbé Mulot was in the heart of the Commune.
“However,
although they were fanatical Jacobins, the members of the Commune were far =
from
agreeing to the propositions of their president that they act in defence of
Jewish rights in the National Assembly. It was necessary to return constant=
ly
to the attack, naturally with the powerful help of Cerfbeer’s gold and
that of the Abbés Fauchet and Bertoliot. This latter declared during=
a
session of the Commune on this question: ‘It was necessary that such a
happy and unexpected event as the revolution should come and rejuvenate
France… Let us hasten to consign to oblivion the crimes of our
fathers.’
“Then, dur=
ing
another session, the lawyer Godard bust into the chamber with fifty armed
‘patriots’ dressed in costumes of the national guard with
three-coloured cockades. They were fifty Jews who, naturally provided with
money, had made the rounds of the sections of the Paris Commune and of the
wards of the town of Paris, talking about recruiting partisans of equality =
for
the Jews. This had its effect. Out of the sixty sections of Paris fifty-nine
declared themselves for equality (only the quartier des Halles abstained). =
Then
the Commune addressed the National Assembly with an appeal signed by the
Abbés Mulot, Bertoliot, Fauchet and other members, demanding that
equality be immediately given to the Jews.
“However, =
even
after that, the National Assembly hesitated in declaring itself in the mann=
er
provided. Then, on September 27, the day of the penultimate session of the
Assembly before its dissolution, the Jacobin deputy Adrien Duport posed the
question of equality for the Jews in a categorical fashion. The Assembly kn=
ew
Adrien Duport’s personality perfectly. It knew that in a secret meeti=
ng
of the chiefs of Freemasonry which preceded the revolution, he had insisted=
on
the necessity of resort to a system of terror. The Assembly yielded. There
followed a decree signed by Louis XVI granting French Jews full and complete
equality of rights…”[175]
The power of the
Jewish minority was revealed especially during the reign of terror under Ro=
bespierre.
2300 Catholic churches were converted into “temples of Reason”.=
And
at that point some voices were raised, writes Tikhomirov, “demanding =
that
the ban be spread onto the Jews also, and that circumcision be forbidden. T=
hese
demands were completely ignored, and were not even put to the vote. In the
local communes individual groups of especially wild Jacobins, who had not b=
een
initiated into higher politics, sometimes broke into synagogues, destroying=
the
Torah and books, but it was only by 1794 that the revolutionary-atheist log=
ic
finally forced even the bosses to pose the question of the annihilation not
only of Catholicism, but also of Jewry. At this point, however, the Jews we=
re
delivered by 9 Thermidor, 1794. Robespierre fell and was executed. The mode=
rate
elements triumphed. The question of the ban of Jewry disappeared of itself,
while the Constitution of Year III of the Republic granted equal rights =
to
the Jews.”[176]
But this was not=
the
end of the matter. In the late 1790s a new wave of Ashkenazis entered France
from Germany, attracted by the superior status their French brothers now
enjoyed. This was to lead to further disturbances in Alsace, which it was l=
eft
to Napoleon to deal with…
“Nevertheless,” as Paul Johnson writes, “the deed =
was
done. French Jews were now free and the clock could never be turned back.
Moreover, emancipation in some form took place wherever the French were abl=
e to
carry the revolutionary spirit with their arms. The ghettos and Jewish clos=
ed
quarters were broken into in papal Avignon (1791), Nice (1792) and the
Rhineland (1792-3). The spread of the revolution to the Netherlands, and the
founding of the Batavian republic, led to Jews being granted full and formal
rights by law there (1796). In 1796-8 Napoleon Bonaparte liberated many of =
the
Italian ghettos, French troops, young Jews and local enthusiasts tearing do=
wn
the crumbling old walls.
“For the f=
irst
time a new archetype, who had always existed in embryonic form, began to em=
erge
from the shadows: the revolutionary Jew. Clericalists in Italy swore enmity=
to
‘Gauls, Jacobins and Jews’. In 1793-4 Jewish Jacobins set up a
revolutionary regime in Saint Esprit, the Jewish suburb of Bayonne. Once ag=
ain,
as during the Reformation, traditionalists saw a sinister link between the
Torah and subversion.”[177]
However, the abo=
ve
picture of the Jewish struggle for emancipation in Paris and, later, Bayonne
should not obscure the fact that there was still very strong opposition to =
the
idea of emancipation from within Jewry itself led especially by the rabbinic
leaders of Ashkenazi Jewry in Poland.
Thus Zalkind Hou=
rwitz
was a Polish Jew who won a prize for an essay advocating Jewish emancipation
from the Royal Society for Arts and Sciences at Metz in 1787. Nevertheless,=
as
Vital writes, he “made no bones about his view of the internal
constraints to which Jews in all parts were subject through the workings of=
the
rabbinical-Talmudic system: of the limits it set upon their worldly freedom=
, of
the manner in which it effectively barred their entry into society on a bas=
is
of equality. The social liberation of the Jews was conditional, he believed=
, on
the power that the rabbis and the parnassim [chief synagogue officia=
ls]
jointly exercised over ordinary people in their daily lives being terminated
– in great matters as in small. ‘Their rabbis and syndics [i.e.=
parnassim]
must be strictly forbidden to assume the least authority over their fellows
outside the synagogue, or refuse honours to those who have shaved off their
beards, or curled their hair, or who dress like Christians, go to the theat=
re,
or observe other customs that bear no actual relation to their religion, but
derive from superstition alone as a means of distinguishing them from other
peoples.’”[178]
In France, it ha=
d been
the less typical, socially marginalized Jews who had pressed for emancipati=
on.
Even the more acculturated Sephardic Jews of Bourdeaux and Bayonne had been
slow to ask for emancipation, first, because they feared that they might ha=
ve
to pay for liberties which they already enjoyed de facto, and second=
ly,
because they wanted to be clearly delineated from the Ashkenazi Jews of Als=
ace.
The latter, cont=
inues
Vital, “had been slower still to ask for liberation. There is no evid=
ence
of their authorized representatives pressing for anything remotely of the k=
ind
before the Revolution; and when they made their own first approach to the n=
ew
National Assembly it was to ask for no more than an end to the special taxes
laid upon them and the abolition of the residential, and travel restriction=
s to
which they were subject. The greatest anxiety of the Alsatians was to retain
their own internal communal autonomy – to which end, with only rare
exceptions, they (at all events, their authorized representatives) were
prepared to forgo emancipation altogether. Only when they learned that other
branches of French Jewry, the small community in Paris among them, were
prepared to yield to the demand that they give up their ancient corporate
status did the Alsatians and Lorrainers fall, reluctantly, into line.”=
;[179]
The question: to
emancipate or not to emancipate? was to cause bitter divisions in Jewry that
have continued to the present day. It brought into sharp focus another
question: was it possible for the Jews, while remain Jewish, ever to
become an integral part of non-Jewish society? And if not, how were they to
live – as a separate nation with its own homeland and language as the
other Gentile nations, or in some other way?
The extreme
revolutionary zeal of many of the champions of Jewish emancipation, on the =
one
hand, and the equally extreme bigotry and ghetto-creating mentality of the
opponents of emancipation, on the other, suggested that there was no easy
solution to this problem, even with the best intentions of the Gentile rule=
rs.
For, as Norman S=
tone
points out, “Jewish emancipation was a double-edged operation. It
required a fundamental change in the conduct and the attitudes both of the =
host
societies and of the Jews themselves. It demanded the dismantling not only =
of
the constraints imposed on Jews from outside but also of the ‘internal
ghetto’ in Jewish minds. Modern concern with the roots of anti-Semiti=
sm
sometimes overlooks the severity of the Jews’ own laws of segregation.
Observant Jews could not hold to the 613 rules of dress, diet, hygience and
worship if they tried to live outside their own closed community; and
intermarriage was strictly forbidden. Since Judaic law taught that Jewishne=
ss
was biologically inherited in the maternal line, Jewish women were jealously
protected. A girl who dared to marry out could expect to be disowned by her
family, and ritually pronounced dead. Extreme determination was needed to
withstand such acute social pressures…”[180]
Napoleon
and the Jews
If the French
revolution gave the Jews their first great political victory, Napoleon gave
them their second. On May 22, 1799, Napoleon’s Paris Moniteur
published the following report, penned from Constantinople on April 17:
“Buonaparte has published a proclamation in which he invites all the =
Jews
of Asia and Africa to come and place themselves under his flag in order =
to
re-establish ancient Jerusalem. He has already armed a great number and
their battalions are threatening Aleppo.”
This was not the=
first
time that the Jews had persuaded a Gentile ruler to restore them to Jerusal=
em.
In the fourth century the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate allowed the Jew=
s to
return to Jerusalem and start rebuilding the Temple. However, fire came out
from the foundations and black crosses appeared on the workers’ garme=
nts,
forcing them to abandon the enterprise.[181]
And the Jews wer=
e to
be thwarted again. For British sea-power prevented Napoleon from reaching
Jerusalem and making himself, as was reported to be his intention, king of =
the
Jews. The Jews would have to wait over a century before another Gentile pow=
er
– this time, the British – again offered them a return to Zion.=
Napoleon now lea=
rned
what many rulers before and after had learned: that kindness towards the Je=
ws
does not make them more tractable. Nechvolodov writes: “Since the fir=
st
years of the Empire, Napoleon I had become very worried about the Jewish
monopoly in France and the isolation in which they lived in the midst of the
other citizens, although they had received citizenship. The reports of the
departments showed the activity of the Jews in a very bad light:
‘Everywhere there are false declarations to the civil authorities;
fathers declare the sons who are born to them to be daughters… Again,=
there
are Jews who have given an example of disobedience to the laws of conscript=
ion;
out of sixty-nine Jews who, in the course of six years, should have formed =
part
of the Moselle contingent, none has entered the army.’
“By contra=
st,
behind the army, they give themselves up to frenzied speculation.
“’Unfortunately,’ says Thiers describing the entry=
of
the French into Rome in his History of the Revolution, ‘the
excesses, not against persons but against property, marred the entry of the
French into the ancient capital of the world… Berthier had just left =
for
Paris, Massena had just succeeded him. This hero was accused of having given
the first example. He was soon imitated. They began to pillage the palaces,
convents and rich collections. Some Jews in the rear of the army bought for=
a
paltry price the magnificent objects which the looters were offering
them.’
“It was in=
1805,
during Napoleon’s passage through Strasbourg, after the victory of
Austerlitz, that the complaints against the Jews assumed great proportions.=
The
principal accusations brought against them concerned the terrible use they =
made
of usury. As soon as he returned to Paris, Napoleon judged it necessary to
concentrate all his attention on the Jews. In the State Council, during its
session of April 30, he said, among other things, the following on this
subject:
“’The
French government cannot look on with indifference as a vile, degraded nati=
on
capable of every iniquity takes exclusive possession of two beautiful
departments of Alsace; one must consider the Jews as a nation and not as a
sect. It is a nation within a nation; I would deprive them, at least for a
certain time, of the right to take out mortgages, for it is too humiliating=
for
the French nation to find itself at the mercy of the vilest nation. Some en=
tire
villages have been expropriated by the Jews; they have replaced
feudalism… It would be dangerous to let the keys of France, Strasbourg
and Alsace, fall into the hands of a population of spies who are not at all=
attached
to the country.’”[182]
Napoleon eventua=
lly
decided on an extraordinary measure: to convene a 111-strong Assembly of Je=
wish
Notables in order to receive clear and unambiguous answers to the following
questions: did the Jewish law permit mixed marriages; did the Jews regard
Frenchmen as foreigners or as brothers; did they regard France as their nat=
ive
country, the laws of which they were bound to obey; did the Judaic law draw=
any
distinction between Jewish and Christian debtors? At the same time, writes
Johnson, Napoleon “supplemented this secular body by convening a para=
llel
meeting of rabbis and learned laymen, to advise the Assembly on technical
points of Torah and halakhah. The response of the more traditional elements=
of
Judaism was poor. They did not recognize Napoleon’s right to invent s=
uch
a tribunal, let alone summon it…”[183]
However, if some
traditionalists did not welcome it, other Jews received the news with unbou=
nded
joy. “According to Abbé Lemann,” writes Nechvolodov,
“they grovelled in front of him and were ready to recognize him as the
Messiah. The sessions of the Sanhedrin [composed of 46 rabbis and 25 laymen
from all parts of Western Europe] took place in February and March, 1807, a=
nd
the Decision of the Great Sanhedrin began with the words:
“’Bl=
essed
forever is the Lord, the God of Israel, Who has placed on the throne of Fra=
nce
and of the kingdom of Italy a prince according to His heart. God has seen t=
he
humiliation of the descendants of ancient Jacob, and He has chosen Napoleon=
the
Great to be the instrument of His mercy… Reunited today under his
powerful protection in the good town of Paris, to the number of seventy-one
doctors of the law and notables of Israel, we constitute a Great Sanhedrin,=
so
as to find in us a means and power to create religious ordinances in confor=
mity
with the principles of our holy laws, and which may serve as a rule and exa=
mple
to all Israelites. These ordinances will teach the nations that our dogmas =
are
consistent with the civil laws under which we live, an do not separate us at
all from the society of men…’”[184]
“Love of c=
ountry
is in the heart of Jews a sentiment so natural, so powerful, and so consona=
nt
with their religious opinions, that a French Jew considers himself in Engla=
nd,
as among strangers, although he may be among Jews; and the case is the same
with English Jews in France. To such a pitch is this sentiment carried among
them, that during the last war, French Jews were fighting desperately again=
st
other Jews, the subject of countries then at war with France.”[185]
“The Jewish
delegates,” writes Platonov, “declared that state laws had the =
same
obligatory force for Jews, that every honourable study of Jewish teaching w=
as
allowed, but usury was forbidden, etc. [However,] to the question concerning
mixed marriages of Jews and Christians they gave an evasive, if not negative
reply. ‘Although mixed marriages between Jews and Christians cannot be
clothed in a religious form, they nevertheless do not draw upon them any
anathema.”[186]
On the face of i=
t, the
Decision of the Sanhedrin was a great triumph for Napoleon, who could
now treat Jewry as just another religious denomination, and not a separate
nation.[187]
And indeed, as Douglas Reed says, “Orthodox Judaism, with the face of=
it
turned towards the West, denied any suggestion that the Jews would form a
nation within nations. Reform Judaism in time ‘eliminated every prayer
expressing so much as even the suspicion of a hope or desire for any form of
Jewish national resurrection’ (Rabbi Moses P. Jacobson).”[188]
However, the Jew=
s did
not restrain their money-lending and speculative activities, as Napoleon had
pleaded with them. On the contrary, only one year after the convening of the
Great Sanhedrin, Napoleon was forced to adopt repressive measures against t=
heir
financial excesses. Moreover, Napoleon created rabbinic consistories in Fra=
nce
having disciplinary powers over Jews and granted rabbis the status of state
officials – a measure that was strengthen the powers of the rabbis ov=
er their
people. In time Jewish consistories were created all over Europe. They
“began the stormy propaganda of Judaism amidst Jews who had partially
fallen away from the religion of their ancestors, organised rabbinic schools
and spiritual seminaries for the education of youth in the spirit of Talmud=
ic
Judaism.”[189]
Moreover, as
Tikhomirov points out, “no laws could avert the international links of
the Jews. Sometimes they even appeared openly, as in Kol Ispoel Khaberim=
(Alliance Israelite Universelle), although many legislatures forbid
societies and unions of their own citizens to have links with foreigners. T=
he
Jews gained a position of exceptional privilege. For the first time in the
history of the diaspora they acquired greater rights than the local citizen=
s of
the countries of the dispersion. One can understand that, whatever the furt=
her
aims for the resurrection of Israel might be, the countries of the new cult=
ure
and statehood became from that time a lever of support for Jewry.”[190]
Indeed, the main
result of the Great Sanhedrin, writes Nechvolodov, “was to unite Juda=
ism
still more. “’Let us not forget from where we draw our
origin,’ said Rabbi Salomon Lippmann Cerfbeer on July 26, 1808, in his
speech for the opening of the preparatory assembly of the Sanhedrin:-
‘Let it no longer be a question of “German” or
“Portuguese” Jews; although disseminated over the surface of the
globe, we everywhere form only one unique people.’”[191]
The emancipation=
of
the Jews in France led to their emancipation in other countries under French
influence, as we have seen. Even after the fall of Napoleon, on June 8, 181=
5,
the Congress of Vienna decreed that “it was incumbent on the members =
of
the German Confederation to consider an ‘amelioration’ of the c=
ivil
status of all those who ‘confessed the Jewish faith in
Germany.’”[192]
Gradually, though not without opposition, Jewish emancipation spread throug=
hout
Europe.
Napoleon
and the Latin American Revolutions
Another kind of
nationalism owed its origins to the impact of Napoleon, not on whole societ=
ies,
but directly on certain individuals, who then tried to imitate NapoleonR=
17;s
impact on society as a whole. Such individuals were generally ambitious
adventurers who managed by hook or by crook to impose themselves on weakened
government structures and then claim for themselves the mandate of the peop=
le,
as if their individual will represented the “general will” of t=
he
people. Simple despotism, in other words, disguised as liberation from
despotism. Very often these “liberated” peoples had no idea that
they had been a distinct nation before, and would have been much happier
without any “liberator”. They were indeed “forced to be
free”, in Rousseau’s phrase.
The most famous =
of the
“liberators” was Simon Jose Antonio de la Santissima Trinidad de
Bolivar. Bolivar is a good example of the terrible spiritual damage done to=
a
whole generation of young men by the heroic image of Napoleon. Just as Napo=
leon
himself stood between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the passion =
of
the Romantic age, uniting them in the image of himself fighting for both the
ideals of the Enlightenment and the death-defying glory of the romantic her=
o,
so did Bolivar and a host of similar adventurers in Central and South Ameri=
ca
aspire to unite national “liberation” with personal glory.
“Bolivar a=
rrived
in the French capital just in time for Napoleon’s coronation as Emper=
or
of the French, an event he watched with fascination. In March 1805 ... he s=
aw
Napoleon crown himself king of Italy. ‘I centred my attention on Napo=
leon
and saw nothing but him out of that crowd of men,’ he wrote. He trave=
lled
on to Rome under the spell of this vision and there, after considering what=
he
had seen, he ascended the Monte Sacro, where he fell on his knees and swore=
an
oath before Rodriguez to liberate South America.”[193]
Bolivar seized h=
is
chance after Napoleon deposed King Ferdinand VII of Spain, which eventually
unleashed a strong nationalist backlash in Spain – but not before
breaking the legal links between Spain and its colonies in the Americas.
Returning to Venezuela, Boliva proceeded to win, lose and finally reconquer
Caracas from the Spaniards in a series of civil wars distinguished by appal=
ling
savagery on both sides. Although the Venezuelan Republic had been proclaime=
d on
a whites-only franchise in 1811, thereby excluding all Indians and blacks f=
rom
“the nation”, and although Bolivar himself was a slave-owner an=
d to
all intents and purposes Spanish, on reconquering Caracas in 1813 he
immediately likened all royalist Spaniards to wandering Jews, to be “=
cast
out and persecuted”, and declared: “Any Spaniard who does not w=
ork
against tyranny in favour of the just cause, by the most active and effecti=
ve
means, shall be considered an enemy and punished as a traitor to the country
and in consequence shall inevitably be shot. Spaniards and Canarios, depend
upon it, you will die, even if you are simply neutral, unless you actively
espouse the liberation of America.”[194]
Bolivar was as good as his word, and proceeded to slaughter the whole Spani=
sh
population of Caracas – whereupon the people he had supposedly come to
liberate, the Indians and blacks, both free and slave, marched against him
under the slogan of “Long live Ferdinand VII”! After murdering =
a further
1200 Spaniards in retaliation, Bolivar then harangued the inhabitants of
Caracas, saying: “You may judge for yourselves, without partiality,
whether I have not sacrificed my life, my being, every minute of my time in
order to make a nation of you.”[195]
Like his idol Na=
poleon,
and many Latin American strongmen since, Bolivar did not like the people
expressing its will in elections, which he called “the greatest scour=
ge
of republics [which] produce only anarchy”. The liberator of Mexico,
Agustin de Iturbide, agreed, proclaiming himself Emperor in 1822. But such
unrepublican immodesty was nothing compared to Bolivar’s, who “=
hung
in the dining room of his villa outside Bogota a huge portrait of himself b=
eing
crowned by two genii, with the inscription: ‘Bolivar is the God of
Colombia’.”[196]
Nor, in the end,=
did
he have much time for the people he had liberated. Shortly after the
assassination of his right-hand man, General José Antonio de Sucre, =
when
he was in self-imposed exile in Europe, he admitted that independence was t=
he
only benefit he had brought “at the cost of everything else”, a=
nd
declared: “America is ungovernable. He who serves the revolution ploughs the sea… This country will
inexorably fall into the hands of uncontrollable multitudes, thereafter to =
pass
under… tyrants of all colours and races. Those who have served the revolution h=
ave
ploughed the sea. The only thing to do in America is emigrate.”[197] And
again: “America can be ruled only by an able despotism.”[198]
Despotism also
prevailed in another “liberated” country of the region, Paragua=
y,
where it became a “secular replacement” for the former
“Jesuit communist empire”.[199]
“After
independence,” writes David Landes, “like other debris states of
the great Hispanic empire, Paraguay had fallen almost immediately under the
control of dictators. The laws said republic, but the practice was one-man =
rule
– a mix of benevolent despotism and populist tyranny. The first of th=
ese
dictators…, Dr. Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, was something special. A
Jacobin ideologue, and like many of the French variety, a lawyer by trainin=
g,
Francia was committed to a republic of equals and him more equal than the r=
est.
He was he was the ‘organic leader’, the elitist embodying the
popular will… Dr. Francia and his successors, Lopez father and son, w=
ould
turn the country into an enlightened Sparta – egalitarian, literate,
disciplined, and brave.”[200]
“It is gen=
erally
accepted,” writes Zamoyski, “that the former Spanish colonies n=
ever
again achieved the wealth in which they had basked before 1810. Some mainta=
in
that they were also better governed, more lawful and more peaceful under
Spanish rule than at any time since, and there is something to be said for =
this
view.
“Slavery w=
as
finally abolished in the former Spanish colonies in the late 1850s, but
economic slavery remained endemic throughout the region. The manner in which
independence and nationhood were forced upon these societies gave rise to
systemic instability. The various Liberators could not count on devotion to=
a cause
to animate their troops and supporters, as the cause was imaginary. Nor cou=
ld
they mobilize one whole section of the population on behalf of a specific
interest for any length of time. And they certainly could not depend on
colleagues, who were bound, sooner or later, to contest their authority. Th=
ey
therefore had to keep rearranging alliances and decapitating any faction th=
at
grew too strong. In order to enlist the loyalty and sympathy of the lower
orders, they would make a point of drawing these into the army. But as such
recruits became professionals, they cut their links with the classes they c=
ame
from and grew into arrogant Praetorians who carried with them an element of
incipient mutiny.”[201]
There is a profo=
und
irony here. The cult of the nation introduced by article three of the Right=
s of
Man was meant to unite the peoples, not disunite them. But in fact it divid=
ed
and splintered the Americas, as it had divided and splintered Europe.
Romanticism
and Nationalism
Reference has al=
ready
been made to that broader movement, known as Romanticism, which fed =
into
the development of nationalism from the other side of the Rhine. Romanticism
was born as a reaction to the Enlightenment and, more generally, to the who=
le
classical concept of civilisation. If the English Enlightenment dominated t=
he
cultural life of the early 18th century, and the French Enlightenment - the
later part of the century, then German Romanticism dominated the intellectu=
al
and cultural life of the early 19th century.
Hume had shown t=
hat
the empirical, rationalist view of the world had, paradoxically, no rational
foundations, for it led to a denial of the objective existence of God, the
soul, morality and even of the external world. Kant desperately attempted to
rescue something from Hume’s withering criticism. But ultimately he
begat, not a rebirth of empiricism on rational foundations, but the German
philosophy of idealism, which turned everything on its head by defin=
ing
the world as spirit, the objective as the subjective.
Romanticism is t=
he
counterpart in art to idealism in philosophy. Jacques Barzun attempts to de=
fine
it thus: “In Romanticism thought and feeling are fused; its bent is
toward exploration and discovery at whatever risk of error or failure; the =
religious
emotion is innate and demands expression. Spirit is a reality but where it =
is
placed varies and is secondary: the divine may be reached through nature or
art. The individual self is a source of knowledge on which one must act; for
one is embarked – engagé, as the 20C Existentialists sa=
y.
To act, enthusiasm must overcome indifference or despair; impulse must be
guided by imagination and reason. The search is for truths, which reside in
particulars, not in generalities; the world is bigger and more complex than=
any
set of abstractions, and it includes the past, which is never fully done wi=
th.
Meditating on past and present leads to the estimate of man as great and
wretched. But heroes are real and indispensable. They rise out of the peopl=
e,
whose own mind-and-heart provides the makings of high culture. The errors of
heroes and peoples are the price of knowledge, religion, and art, life itse=
lf
being a heroic tragedy.”[202]
Sir Isaiah
Berlin’s definition is also illuminating: “Since the Greeks, and
perhaps long before them, men have believed that to the central questions a=
bout
the nature and purpose of their lives, and of the world in which they lived,
true, objective, universal and eternal answers could be found. If the answe=
rs
could not be discovered by me, then perhaps by someone more expert or wiser
than I; if not in the circumstances in which I found myself, then in others
more propitious: in an innocent and happy past – a Garden of Eden from
which our ancestors had for their sins been expelled, or perhaps in a golden
age that still lay in the future, which posterity (perhaps after much labour
and suffering) would, or at any rate could, one day reach. It was assumed t=
hat
all the truly central problems were soluble in principle even if not in
practice. Somewhere true answers to all genuine questions must exist, if no=
t in
the minds of men, then in the mind of an omniscient being – real or
imaginary, material or ideal, a personal deity, or the universe come to full
consciousness of itself.
“This pres=
upposition,
which underlies most classical and Christian thought, orthodox and heretica=
l,
scientific and religious, was connected with the belief that, whether men k=
new
it or not, the whole of life on earth was in some sense bound up with the
search for answer to the great, tormenting questions of fact and of conduct=
; of
what there is, was, will be, can be; of what to do, what to live by, what to
seek, hope for, admire, fear, avoid; whether the end of life was happiness =
or
justice or virtue or self-fulfilment or grace and salvation. Individuals,
schools of thought, entire civilisations differed about what the answers we=
re,
about the proper method of discovering them, about the nature and place of
moral or spiritual or scientific authority – that is to say, about ho=
w to
identify the experts who are qualified to discover and communicate the answ=
ers.
They argued about what constitutes such qualifications and justifies such
claims to authority. But there was no doubt that the truth lay somewhere; t=
hat
it could in principle be found. Conflicting beliefs were held about the cen=
tral
questions: whether the truth was to be found in reason or in faith, in the
Church or the laboratory, in the insights of the uniquely privileged indivi=
dual
– a prophet, a mystic, an alchemist, a metaphysician – or in the
collective consciousness of a body of men – the society of the faithf=
ul,
the traditions of a tribe, a race, a nation, a social class, an academy of
experts, an elite of uniquely endowed or trained beings – or, on the
contrary, in the mind or heart of any man, anywhere, at any time, provided =
that
he remained innocent and uncorrupted by false doctrines. What was common to=
all
these views – incompatible enough for wars of extermination to have b=
een
fought in their name – was the assumption that there existed a realit=
y, a
structure of things, a rerum natura, which the qualified enquirer co=
uld
see, study and, in principle, get right. Men were violently divided about t=
he
nature and identity of the wise – those who understood the nature of
things – but not about the proposition that such wise men existed or
could be conceived, and that they would know that which would enable them to
deduce correctly what men should believe, how they should act, what they sh=
ould
live by and for.
“This was the great foundatio=
n of
belief which romanticism attacked and weakened. Whatever the differences
between the leading romantic thinkers – the early Schiller and the la=
ter
Fichte, Schelling and Jacobi, Tieck and the Schlegels when they were young,
Chateaubriand and Byron, Coleridge and Carlyle, Kierkegaard, Stirner,
Nietzsche, Baudelaire – there runs through their writings a common
notion, held with varying degrees of consciousness and depth, that truth is=
not
an objective structure, independent of those who seek it, the hidden treasu=
re
waiting to be found, but is itself in all its guises created by the seeker.=
It
is not to be brought into being necessarily by the finite individual: accor=
ding
to some it is created by a greater power, a universal spirit, personal or
impersonal, in which the individual is an element, or of which he is an asp=
ect,
an emanation, an imperfect reflection. But the common assumption of the
romantics that runs counter to the philosophia perennis is that the
answers to the great questions are not to be discovered so much as to be
invented. They are not something found, they are something literally made. =
In
its extreme Idealistic form it is a vision of the entire world. In its more
familiar form, it confines itself to the realm of values, ideals, rules of
conduct – aesthetic, religious, social, moral, political – a re=
alm
seen not as a natural or supernatural order capable of being investigated,
described and explained by the appropriate method – rational examinat=
ion
or some more mysterious procedure – but as something that man creates=
, as
he creates works of art; not by imitating, or even obtaining illumination f=
rom,
pre-existent models or truths, or by applying pre-existent truths or rules =
that
are objective, universal, eternal, unalterable but by an act of creation, t=
he
introduction into the world of something literally novel – the activi=
ty,
natural or supernatural, human or in part divine, owing nothing to anything
outside it (in some versions because nothing can be conceived as being outs=
ide
it), self-subsistent, self-justified, self-fulfilling. Hence that new empha=
sis
on the subjective and ideal rather than the objective and the real, on the
process of creation rather than its effects, on motives rather than
consequences; and, as a necessary corollary of all this, on the quality of =
the
vision, the state of mind or soul of the acting agent – purity of hea=
rt,
innocence of intention, sincerity of purpose rather than getting the answer
right, that is, accurate correspondence to the ‘given’. Hence t=
he
emphasis on activity, movement that cannot be reduced to static segments, t=
he
flow that cannot be arrested, frozen, analysed without being thereby fatally
distorted; hence the constant protest against the reduction of ‘life&=
#8217;
to dead fragments, of organism to ‘mere’ mechanical or uniform
units; and the corresponding tendency towards similes and metaphors drawn f=
rom
‘dynamic’ sciences – biology, physiology, introspective
psychology – and the worship of music, which, of all the arts, appear=
s to
have the least relation to universally observable, uniform natural order.
Hence, too, the celebration of all forms of defiance directed against the
‘given’ – the impersonal, the ‘brute fact’ in
morals or in politics – or against the static and the accepted, and t=
he
value placed on minorities and martyrs as such, no matter what the ideal for
which they suffered.
“This, too=
, is
the source of the doctrine that work is sacred as such, not because of its
social function, but because it is the imposition of the individual or
collective personality, that is, activity, upon inert stuff. The activity, =
the
struggle is all, the victory nothing: in Fichte’s words, ‘Frei =
sein
ist nichts – frei werden ist der Himmel’ (‘To be free is
nothing – to become free is very heaven’). Failure is nobler th=
an
success. Self-immolation for a cause is the thing, not the validity of the
cause itself, for it is the sacrifice undertaken for its sake that sanctifi=
es
the cause, not some intrinsic property of it.
“These are=
the symptoms
of the romantic attitude. Hence the worship of the artist, whether in sound=
, or
word, or colour, as the highest manifestation of the ever-active spirit, and
the popular image of the artist in his garret, wild-eyed, wild-haired, poor,
solitary, mocked-; but independent, free, spiritually superior to his
philistine tormentors. This attitude has a darker side too: worship not mer=
ely
of the painter or the composer or the poet, but of that more sinister artis=
ts
whose materials are men – the destroyer of old societies, and the cre=
ator
of new ones – no matter at what human cost: the superhuman leader who
tortures and destroys in order to build on new foundations – Napoleon=
in
his most revolutionary aspect. It is this embodiment of the romantic ideal =
that
took more and more hysterical forms and in its extreme ended in violent
irrationalism and Fascism. Yet this same outlook also bred respect for
individuality, for the creative impulse, for the unique, the independent, f=
or
freedom to live and act in the light of personal, undictated beliefs and
principles, of undistorted emotional needs, for the value of personal life,=
of
personal relationships, of the individual conscience, of human rights. The
positive and negative heritage of romanticism – on the one hand conte=
mpt
for opportunism, regard for individual variety, scepticism of oppressive
general formulae and final solutions, and on the other self-prostration bef=
ore
superior beings and the exaltation of arbitrary power, passion and cruelty
– these tendencies, at once reflected and promoted by romantic doctri=
nes,
have done more to mould both the events of our century and the concepts in
terms in which they are viewed and explained than is commonly recognised in
most histories of our time.”[203]
Romanticism was =
an
individualist attitude par excellence: but it had its collectivist
analogues, including nationalism, which may therefore be said to have been
nurtured from the streams both of the French Enlightenment and of the German
Romantic anti-Enlightenment. Thus “for Byronic romantics,” writ=
es
Berlin, “’I’ is indeed an individual, the outsider, the
adventurer, the outlaw, he who defies society and accepted values, and foll=
ows
his own – it may be to his doom, but this is better than conformity,
enslavement to mediocrity. But for other thinkers ‘I’ becomes
something much more metaphysical. It is a collective – a nation, a
Church, a Party, a class, an edifice in which I am only a stone, an organis=
m of
which I am only a tiny living fragment. It is the creator; I myself
matter only in so far as I belong to the movement, the race, the nation, the
class, the Church; I do not signify as a true individual within this
super-person to whom my life is organically bound. Hence German nationalism=
: I
do this not because it is good or right or because I like it – I do it
because I am a German and this is the German way to live. So also modern
existentialism – I do it because I commit myself to this form of
existence. Nothing makes me; I do not do it because it is an objective orde=
r which
I obey, or because of universal rules to which I must adhere; I do it becau=
se I
create my own life as I do; being what I am, I give it direction and I am
responsible for it. Denial of universal values, this emphasis on being above
all an element in, and loyal to, a super-self, is a dangerous moment in
European history, and has led to a great deal that has been destructive and
sinister in modern times; this is where it begins, in the political ruminat=
ions
and theories of the earliest German romantics and their disciples in France=
and
elsewhere.”[204]
German Nationalism
Thus modern Euro=
pean
nationalism is the fruit of the union of two ideas coming from two different
directions: the French Enlightenment idea of the sovereignty and =
rights
of the Nation, and the German Romantic idea of the uniqueness and
In its early sta=
ges
Kant, Hegel and Goethe had all praised the Revolution; and Kant’s
disciple, Fichte, had even declared that “henceforth the French Repub=
lic
alone can be the country of the Just”. “But,” writes
Zamoyski, “as the revolution progressed, the feeling grew in Germany =
that
the French, with their habitual shallowness, had got it all wrong. They had
allowed the pursuit of liberty to degenerate into mob rule and mass slaught=
er
of innocent people because they perceived liberty in mechanical terms. Germ=
an
thinkers were more interested in ‘real liberty', and many believed th=
at
it was the ‘corrupt’ nature of the French that had doomed the
revolution to failure. Such conclusions allowed for a degree of smugness,
suggesting as they did that the French Enlightenment, for all its brillianc=
e,
had been flawed, while German intellectual achievements had been more profo=
und
and more solid.
“Fichte
identified Germany’s greatness as lying in her essentially spiritual
destiny. She would never stoop to conquer others, and while nations such as=
the
French, the English or the Spanish scrambled for wealth and dominance,
Germany’s role was to uphold the finest values of humanity.[206]
Similar claims to a moral mission for Germany were made by Herder,
Hölderlin, Schlegel and others…
“It had be=
en
central to Herder’s argument that each nation, by virtue of its innate
character, had a special role to play in the greater process of history. One
after another, nations ascended the world stage to fulfil their ordained
purpose. The French were crowding the proscenium, but there was a growing
conviction that Germany’s time was coming, and her destiny was about =
to
unfold. The Germans certainly seemed ready for it. The country was awash wi=
th
under-employed young men, and since the days of the proto-romantic movement=
of Sturm
und Drang the concept of action, both as a revolt against stultifying
rational forces and as a transcendent act of self-assertion, had become well
established. Fichte equated virtually any action, provided it was bold
unfettered, with liberation.
“The probl=
em was
that the nation was still not properly constituted. Some defined it by lang=
uage
and culture, or, like Fichte, by a level of consciousness. The Germans were,
according to him, more innately creative than other nations, being the only
genuine people in Europe, an Urvolk, speaking the only authentic
language, Ursprache. Others saw the nation as a kind of church, defi=
ned
by the ‘mission’ of the German people. Adam Müller affirmed
that this mission was to serve humanity with charity, and that any man who
dedicated himself to this common purpose should be considered a German. In =
his
lectures of 1806, Fichte made the connection between committed action and
nationality. Those who stood up and demonstrated their vitality were part of
the Urvolk, those who did not were un-German. Hegel saw the people a=
s a
spiritual organism, whose expression, the collective spirit or Volksgeis=
t,
was its validating religion. The discussion mingled elements of theology,
science and metaphysics to produce uplifting and philosophically challenging
confusion.
“But in the
absence of clear geographical or political parameters, Germany’s nati=
onal
existence was ultimately dependent on some variant of the racial concept. A=
nd
this began to be stated with increasing assertiveness. ‘In itself eve=
ry
nationality is a completely closed and rounded whole, a common tie of blood
relationship unites all its members; all… must be of one mind and must
stick together like one man’, according to Joseph Görres, who had
once been an enthusiastic internationalist. ‘This instinctive urge th=
at
binds all members into a whole is a law of nature which takes preference ov=
er
all artificial contracts… The voice of nature in ourselves warns us a=
nd
points to the chasm between us and the alien’.
“The locat=
ion
and identification of this ‘closed and rounded whole’ involved =
not
just defining German ethnicity, but also delving into the past in search of=
a
typically German and organic national unit to set against the old rationali=
st
French view of statehood based on natural law and the rights of man. The bi=
ble
of this tendency was Tacitus’s Germania. Placed in its own tim=
e,
this book is as much about Rome as about Germanic tribes. It imagines the
ultimate non-Rome, a place that had not been cleared and cultivated, and a
people innocent of the arts of industry and leisure. The forest life it
describes is the antithesis to the classical culture of Rome. It is also in
some ways the original noble savage myth, representing everything that deca=
dent
Rome had lost; beneath Tacitus’s contempt for the savage denizens of =
the
forest lurks a vague fear that by gaining in civilization the Romans had
forfeited certain rugged virtues.
“The German
nationalists picked up this theme, which mirrored their relation to French
culture. Roma and Germania, the city and the forest, corruption and purity,
could stand as paradigms for the present situation. The ancient Teutonic he=
ro
Arminius (Hermann) had led the revolt of the German tribes against Rome and
defeated the legions in the Teutoburg Forest. His descendants who aspired to
throw off the ‘Roman’ universalism of France could take
heart.”[207]
Dostoyevsky deve=
loped
the theme of Germany versus Rome: “Germany’s aim is one; it exi=
sted
before, always. It is her Protestantism – not that single form=
ula
of Protestantism which was conceived in Luther’s time, but her contin=
ual
Protestantism, her continual protest against the Roman world, ever since
Arminius, - against everything that was Rome and Roman in aim, and subseque=
ntly
– against everything that was bequeathed by ancient Rome to the new R=
ome
and to all those peoples who inherited from Rome her idea, her formula and
element; against the heir of Rome and everything that constitutes this
legacy…
“Ancient R=
ome
was the first to generate the idea of the universal unity of men, and was t=
he
first to start thinking of (and firmly believing in) putting it practically
into effect in the form of universal empire. However, this formula fell bef=
ore
Christianity – the formula but not the idea. For this idea is that of
European mankind; through this idea its civilization came into being; for it
alone mankind lives.
“Only the =
idea
of the universal Roman empire succumbed, and it was replaced by a new ideal,
also universal, of a communion in Christ. This new ideal bifurcated into the
Eastern ideal of a purely spiritual communion of men, and the Western Europ=
ean,
Roman Catholic, papal ideal diametrically opposed to the Eastern one.
“This West=
ern
Roman Catholic incarnation of the idea was achieved in its own way, having
lost, however, its Christian, spiritual foundation and having replaced it w=
ith
the ancient Roman legacy. [The] Roman papacy proclaimed that Christianity a=
nd
its idea, without the universal possession of lands and peoples, are not
spiritual but political. In other words, they cannot be achieved without the
realization on earth of a new universal Roman empire now headed not by the
Roman emperor but by the Pope. And thus it was sought to establish a new
universal empire in full accord with the spirit of the ancient Roman world,
only in a different form.
“Thus, we =
have
in the Eastern ideal – first, the spiritual communion of mankind in
Christ, and thereafter, in consequence of the spiritual unity of all men in
Christ and as an unchallenged deduction therefrom – a just state and
social communion. In the Roman interpretation we have a reverse situation:
first it is necessary to achieve firm state unity in the form of a universal
empire, and only after that, perhaps, spiritual fellowship under the rule of
the Pope as the potentate of this world.
“Since that
time, in the Roman world this scheme has been progressing and changing
uninterruptedly, and with its progress the most essential part of the Chris=
tian
element has been virtually lost. Finally, having rejected Christianity
spiritually, the heirs of the ancient Roman world likewise renounced [the]
papacy. The dreadful French revolution has thundered. In substance, it was =
but
the last modification and metamorphosis of the same ancient Roman formula of
universal unity. The new formula, however, proved insufficient. The new idea
failed to come true. There even was a moment when all the nations which had
inherited the ancient Roman tradition were almost in despair. Oh, of course,
that portion of society which in 1789 won political leadership, i.e. the
bourgeoisie, triumphed and declared that there was no necessity of going any
further. But all those minds which by virtue of the eternal laws of nature =
are
destined to dwell in a state of everlasting universal fermentation seeking =
new
formulae of some ideal and a new word indispensable to the progress of the
human organism, - they all rushed to the humiliated and the defrauded, to a=
ll
those who had not received their share in the new formula of universal unity
proclaimed by the French revolution of 1789. These proclaimed a new word of
their own, namely, the necessity of universal fellowship not for the equal
distribution of rights allotted to a quarter, or so, of the human race, lea=
ving
the rest to serve as raw material and a means of exploitation for the happi=
ness
of that quarter of mankind, but, on the contrary – for universal
equality, with each and every one sharing the blessings of this world, what=
ever
these may prove. It was decided to put this scheme into effect by resorting=
to all
means, i.e., not by the means of Christian civilisation – without
stopping at anything.
“Now, what=
has
been Germany’s part in this, throughout these two thousand years? The
most characteristic and essential trait of this great, proud and peculiar
people – ever since their appearance on the historical horizon –
consisted of the fact that they never consented to assimilate their destiny=
and
their principles to those of the outermost Western world, i.e. the heirs of=
the
ancient Roman tradition. The Germans have been protesting against the
latter throughout these two thousand years. And even though they did not (n=
ever
did so far) utter ‘their word’, or set forth their strictly
formulated ideal in lieu of the ancient Roman idea, nevertheless, it seems
that, within themselves, they always were convinced that they were capable =
of
uttering this ‘new word’ and of leading mankind. They struggled=
against
the Roman world as early as the times of Arminius, and during the epoch of
Roman Christianity they, more than any other nation, struggled for the
sovereign power against the new Rome.
“Finally, =
the
Germans protested most vehemently, deriving their formula of protest from t=
he
innermost spiritual, elemental foundation of the Germanic world: they
proclaimed the freedom of inquiry, and raised Luther’s banner. This w=
as a
terrible, universal break: the formula of protest had been found and filled
with a content; even so it still was a negative formula, and the new, po=
sitive
word was not yet uttered.
“And now, =
the
Germanic spirit, having uttered this ‘new word’ of protest, as =
it
were, fainted for a while, quite parallel to an identical weakening of the
former strictly formulated unity of the forces of his adversary. The outerm=
ost
Western world, under the influence of the discovery of America, of new scie=
nces
and new principles, sought to reincarnate itself in a new truth, in a new
phase.
“When, at =
the
time of the French revolution, the first attempt at such a reincarnation to=
ok
place, the Germanic spirit became quite perplexed, and for a time lost its
identity and faith in itself. It proved impotent to say anything against the
new ideas of the outermost Western world. Luther’s Protestantism had =
long
outlived its time, while the idea of free inquiry had long been accepted by
universal science. Germany’s enormous organism more than ever began to
feel that it had no flesh, so to speak, and no form for self-expression. It=
was
then that the pressing urge to consolidate itself, at least outwardly, into=
a
harmonious organism was born in Germany in anticipation of the new future
aspects of her eternal struggle against the outermost Western world…&=
#8221;[208]
This
“pressing urge” could only be satisfied by the creation of a
powerful state, the German Reich. For, wrote Fichte: “Though… t=
he
bones of our national unity… may have bleached and died in the storms=
and
rains and burning suns of several centuries, yet the reanimating breath of =
the
spirit world has not ceased to inspire. It will yet raise the dead bones of=
our
national body and join them bone to bone so that they shall stand forth gra=
ndly
with a new life… No man, no god, nothing in the realm of possibility =
can
help us, but we alone must help ourselves, as long as we deserve it.”=
[209]
Striking here is=
the
Biblical imagery on the one hand (the vision of the dead bones from Ezek=
iel
37), and the explicit affirmation that “no man, no god” can help
the German nation in its quest for resurrection. How different this
quasi-Christian, but in fact pagan call was from the much more Christian ca=
ll
to arms issued by the Russian Church and State to its people only five years
later! This shows that the revival of German nationalism owed less to the
resurrection of Christian faith than to the resurrection of paganism, and of
the myths of the pagan German gods; whose final burial would come over a
century later, in the ruins of Nazi Berlin…
“Fichte,&#=
8221;
writes Paul Johnson, “was much impressed by Niccolò Machiavelli
and saw life as a continuing struggle for supremacy among the nations. The
nation-state most likely to survive and profit from this struggle was the o=
ne
which extended its influence over the lives of its people most widely. And =
such
a nation-state – Germany was the obvious example – would natura=
lly
be expansive. ‘Every nation wants to disseminate as widely as possible
the good points which are peculiar to it. And, in so far as it can, it want=
s to
assimilate the entire human race to itself in accordance with an urge plant=
ed
in men by God, an urge on which the community of nations, the friction betw=
een
them, and their development towards perfection rest.’
“This was a
momentous statement because it gave the authority of Germany’s leading
academic philosopher to the proposition that the power impulse of the state=
was
both natural and healthy, and it placed the impulse in the context of a mor=
al
world view. Fichte’s state was totalitarian and expansive, but it was=
not
revolutionary. Its ‘prince” ruled by hereditary divine right. B=
ut
‘the prince belongs to his nation just as wholly and completely as it
belongs to him. Its destiny under divine providence is laid in his hands, a=
nd
he is responsible for it.’ So the prince’s public acts must be
moral, in accordance with law and justice, and his private life must be abo=
ve
reproach. In relations between states, however, ‘there is neither law=
nor
justice, only the law of strength. This relationship places the divine, sov=
ereign
fights of fate and of world rule in the prince’s hands, and it raises=
him
above the commandments of personal morals and into a higher moral order who=
se
essence is contained in the words, Salus et decus populi suprema lex est=
o.’
This was an extreme and menacing statement that justified any degree of
ruthlessness by the new, developing nation-state in its pursuit of
self-determination and self-preservation. The notion of a ‘higher mor=
al
order’, to be determined by the state’s convenience, was to find
expression, in the 20th century, in what Lenin called ‘the
Revolutionary Conscience’ and Hitler ‘the Higher Law of the
Party’. Moreover, there was no doubt what kind of state Fichter had in
mind. It was not only totalitarian but German. In his Addresses to the
German Nation (1807), he laid down as axiomatic that the state of the
future can only be the national state, in particular the German national st=
ate,
the German Reich.”[210]
It was the German
Masons who first changed towards Napoleon. As Tikhomirov writes, “hav=
ing
betrayed their fatherland at first, they raised their voices against the
French, by virtue of which the German national movement arose.”[211] The
stimulus to this was undoubtedly, as Zamoyski writes, “Napoleon’=
;s crushing
defeat of the Prussians at the Battle of Jena in 1806. The humiliation of
seeing the prestigious army created by the great Frederick trounced by the
French led to painful self-appraisal and underlined the need for regenerati=
on.
But it also stung German pride and dispelled the last shreds of sympathy for
France – and, with them, the universalist dreams of the previous deca=
de.
“The French
became villains, and Napoleon himself was even portrayed as the Antichrist,=
a
focus for the crusading struggle of deliverance that would regenerated Germ=
any.
Poets composed patriotic verse and anti-Napoleonic songs…
“An analog=
ous
wave of renewal swept through society. In 1808 the Tugenbund or League of
Virtue, a society for the propagation of civic virtue, was formed in
Königsberg and quickly ramified through Prussia. In 1809 Ludwig Jahn
founded the more middle-class Deutsche Bund, based in Berlin. Joseph
Görres demanded that all foreign elements be expunged from national li=
fe,
so that essential German characteristics might flourish, and declared that =
no
power could stand in the way of a nation intent on defending its soul.
‘That to which the Germans aspire will be granted to them, the day wh=
en,
in their interior, they will have become worthy of it.’ Even the
archetypically Enlightenment cosmopolitan Wilhelm von Humboldt was turning =
into
a Prussian patriot. He was reorganizing the state education system at the t=
ime,
and manage to transform it into a curiously spiritual one in which education
and religion of state are inextricably intertwined.
“But while the m=
ood
changed, reality had not. Germany was still divided and cowered under French
hegemony. To the deep shame of much of her officer corps, Prussia was still=
an
ally of France when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. Her forces, which did =
not
take part in the march on Moscow, were to support the French and secure the=
ir
flank in East Prussia. And it was when the frozen remnants were trudging ba=
ck
into Prussia and Poland that this support would have been most welcome. But=
it
was precisely then that the Prussian military judged it safe to show their
colours. General von Yorck, in command of 14,000 men in East Prussia, found
himself in a pivotal position. With his support, Marshal Macdonald would be
able to hold the line of the River Niemen and keep the Russians out of Pola=
nd;
without it, he had no option but full retreat. The Prussian general had bee=
n in
touch with the Russians for some time, through the intermediary of a young
German officer in Russian service by the name of Carl von Clausewitz. On
Christmas Day 1812 Yorck met the commander of the Russian advance guard and=
, by
a convention he signed with them at Tauroggen, repudiated Prussia’s
alliance with France. It was an act of mutiny, the first in a series of act=
s by
the German army to ‘save’ the fatherland against the orders of =
its
political leaders. It was also the signal for all the nationalists to come =
out
into the open.
“The irasc=
ible
Ernst Moritz Arndt was well to the fore. ‘Oh men of Germany!’ he
exhorted, ‘feel again your God, hear and fear the eternal, and you he=
ard
and fear also your Volk; you feel again in God the honour and dignit=
y of
your fathers, their glorious history rejuvenates itself again in you, their
firm and gallant virtue reblossoms in you, the whole German Fatherland stan=
ds
again before you in the august halo of past centuries… One faith, one
love, one courage, and one enthusiasm must gather again the whole German
“The king =
of
Prussia did not feel quite brave enough to ‘be German’ yet. He
ordered the arrest of Yorck, and then moved to Breslau, where he was out of
reach of the French. In March 1813, when he saw that it was safe for him to
jump on the anti-Napoleon bandwagon, Frederick William announced the format=
ion
of citizens’ volunteer forces, the Landwehr and the Landsturm. On 17
March he issued a proclamation to the effect that his soldiers would ‘=
;fight
for our independence and the honour of the Volk’, and summoned
every son of the fatherland to participate. ‘My cause is the cause of=
my Volk,’
he concluded, less than convincingly. But nobody was looking too closely at
anyone’s motives in the general excitement. The cause of the German
fatherland justified everything. ‘Strike them dead!’ Heinrich v=
on
Kleist had urged the soldiers setting off to war with the French. ‘At=
the
last judgement you will not be asked for your reasons!’
“The campa=
ign of
1813, when the patched-up Napoleonic forces attempted to stand up to the
combined armies of Russia, Prussia, Sweden and Austria, and finally succumb=
ed
at Leipzig, should, according to Chateaubriand, go down in history as
‘the campaign of young Germany, of the poets’. That was certain=
ly
the perception. The by no means young Fichte finished his lecture on the
subject of duty and announced to his students at Berlin that the course was
suspended until they gained liberty or death. He marched out of the hall am=
id
wild cheers, and led the students off to put their names down for the
army…
“The War of
Liberation, Freiheitskrieg, was, above all, a war of purification and
self-discovery. It did not stop with the expulsion of French forces from
Germany in 1813. If anything, it was in the course of 1814, when Napoleon's
forces were fighting for survival on French soil, that the War of Liberation
really got going in Germany…
“But the W=
ar of
Liberation was being waged no less vehemently at the cultural level. The po=
ets
were not squeamish when it came to singing of the national crusade, while t=
he
painters rallied to the cause in a memorable way. Caspar David Friedrich, w=
ho
had already done so much to represent the symbolic German landscape as an
object of worship through a series of paintings in which people are depicted
contemplating its wonder like so many saints adoring the nativity in a medi=
eval
triptych, now turned to glorifying the nation. He painted several
representations of an imaginary tomb of Hermann, evocatively set among crag=
gy
boulders and fir trees. And he also produced various set-pieces representing
the war. Other painters depicted groups of patriotic German volunteers going
forth in their hats to free the fatherland. Joseph Görres led a moveme=
nt demanding
the completion of Cologne Cathedral as a sign of German regeneration.
‘Long shall Germany live in shame and humiliation, a prey to inner
conflict and alien arrogance, until her people return to the ideals from wh=
ich
they were seduced by selfish ambition, and until true religion and loyalty,
unity of purpose and self-denial shall again render them capable of erecting
such a building as this,’ he wrote.”[212]
And yet the majo=
rity
of the German people no longer believed either in the Catholicism that had =
erected
Cologne cathedral, nor in the Protestantism that had first raised the word =
of protest
against the Franco-Roman world and civilisation. (Or if the peasantry belie=
ved,
the intellectuals did not – and after 1871 there would be fewer and f=
ewer
peasants.) As so often happens with nationalistic movements, the attempt to
resurrect the past was actually a sign that the past was definitely dead. T=
hus
German nationalism was a new, degenerate religion taking up the void=
in
the European soul that was left by the death of Christianity.
“The
nation,” writes Mosse, “was the intermediary between the indivi=
dual
and a personal scheme of values and ethics; outside the nation no life or
creativity was possible.”[213]
Görres put =
it as
follows: “Let the nation learn to trace itself to its source, delve i=
nto
its roots: it will find in its innermost being a fathomless well-spring whi=
ch
rises from subterranean treasure; many minds have already been enriched by
drawing on the hoard of the Niebelungen; and still it lies there inexhausti=
ble,
in the depths of its lair.”[214]
From now on, Eur=
opean
man would only rarely be induced to die for God or Church or Sovereign. But=
he
could be induced to die for his country. And that not simply because it is
natural to die for hearth and home, but because the nation was now seen to
incarnate the highest value, whether that value was defined as simply racial
superiority (Germany), or cultural eminence (France), or the rule of law in
freedom (England).
However, Mosse a=
rgues,
“it must never be forgotten that the vision of a better life was a pa=
rt
of all nationalisms. In none of the [nationalist] ideologies discussed was =
the
worship of the nation something in and of itself; it was always the necessa=
ry
way to a better life, a new freedom… All believed that once they had =
been
united by a true national spirit greater happiness for everybody would be t=
he
result.”[215]
The Ideology of Counter-Revoluti=
on
“European
politics in the nineteenth century,” writes Golo Mann, “fed on =
the French
Revolution. No idea, no dream, no fear, no conflict appeared which had not =
been
worked through in that fateful decade: democracy and socialism, reaction,
dictatorship, nationalism, imperialism, pacifism.”[216]
However, of these ideas the one that dominated immediately after the defeat=
of
Napoleon was reaction, not the relatively mild, liberal form of reac=
tion
we have discussed in the previous section, but reaction as the enemy of all
liberalism.
Napoleon’s
escape from Elba in 1814, and the closeness of the struggle that finally
succeeded in overthrowing him in 1815, meant that, as Davies writes, the
Congress of Vienna that reconvened after Waterloo “met in chastened m=
ood.
The representatives of the victorious powers could not be accused, as in th=
e previous
year, of ‘dancing instead of making progress’. They were ready =
to
risk nothing. They were determined, above all, to restore the rights of
monarchy – the sacred institution considered most threatened by the
Revolution. In so doing they, with the partial exception of Tsar Alexander,=
as
we shall see in the next chapter, paid little attention to the claims eithe=
r of
democracy or of nationality….
“The spiri=
t of
the settlement, therefore, was more than conservative: it actually put the
clock back. It was designed to prevent change in a world where the forces of
change had only been contained by a whisker. The Duke of Wellington’s
famous comment on Waterloo was: ‘a damned nice thing, the nearest run
thing you ever saw in your life’. Such was the feeling all over Europ=
e.
The issue between change and no change was so close that the victors felt
terrified of the least concession. Even limited, gradual reform was viewed =
with
suspicion. ‘Beginning reform,’ wrote the Duke in 1830, ‘is
beginning revolution.’ What is more, France, the eternal source of
revolutionary disturbances, had not been tamed. Paris was to erupt repeated=
ly
– in 1830, 1848, 1851, 1870. ‘When Paris sneezes,’ commen=
ted
the Austrian Chancellor, Metternich, ‘Europe catches cold.’
French-style democracy was a menace threatening monarchy, Church, and prope=
rty
– the pillars of everything he stood for. It was, he said, ‘the
disease which must be cured, the volcano which must be extinguished, the
gangrene which must be burned out with a hot iron, the hydra with jaws open=
to
swallow up the social order’.
“In its ex=
treme
form, as embodied by Metternich, the reactionary spirit of 1815 was opposed=
to
any sort of change which did not obtain prior approval. It found expression=
in
the first instance in the Quadruple Alliance of Russia, Prussia, Austria, a=
nd
Britain, who agreed to organize future congresses whenever need arose, and =
then
in a wider ‘Holy Alliance’ organized by the Tsar. The former
produced the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), which readmitted France to=
the
concert of respectable nations. The latter produced the proposal that the
powers should guarantee existing frontiers and governments in
perpetuity.”[217]
France was readm=
itted
to the concert of nations because the victorious powers judged that it was =
an
ideology, Jacobinism, rather than a nation, France, that was the real enemy,
while former revolutionaries who no longer practised revolution could be
forgiven (the reverse judgement was made in 1919). For, as Eric Hobsbawn
writes, “it was now known that revolution in a single country could b=
e a
European phenomenon; that its doctrines could spread across the frontiers a=
nd,
what was worse, its crusading armies could blow away the political systems =
of a
continent. It was now known that social revolution was possible; that natio=
ns
existed as something independent of states, peoples as something independen=
t of
their rulers, and even that the poor existed as something independent of the
ruling classes. ‘The French Revolution,’ De Bonald had observed=
in
1796, ‘is a unique event in history.’ The phrase is misleading:=
it
was a universal event.[218] No
country was immune from it. The French soldiers who campaigned from Andalus=
ia
to Moscow, from the Baltic to Syria – over a vaster area than any bod=
y of
conquerors since the Mongols, and certainly a vaster area than any previous
single military force in Europe except the Norsemen – pushed the
universality of their revolution home more effectively than anything else c=
ould
have done. And the doctrines and institutions they carried with them, even
under Napoleon, from Spain to Illyria, were universal doctrines, as the
governments knew, and as the peoples themselves were soon to know. A Greek
bandit and patriot expressed their feelings completely: “’Accor=
ding
to my judgement,’ said Koloktrones, ‘the French Revolution and =
the
doings of Napoleon opened the eyes of the world. The nations knew nothing
before, and the people thought that kings were gods upon the earth and that
they were bound to say that whatever they did was well done. Through this
present change it is more difficult to rule the people.’”[219]
The French revol=
ution
had another long-term effect: it justified all kinds of crime in the name of
politics.
As Paul Johnson
writes: “Perhaps the most significant characteristic of the dawning
modern world, and in this respect it was a true child of Rousseau, was the
tendency to relate everything to politics. In Latin America, every would-be
plunderer or ambitious bandit now called himself a ‘liberator’;
murderers killed for freedom, thieves stole for the people. In Spain, during
the 1820s, believers and nonbelievers, those who liked kings and those who
hated them, began to regard their faith, or lack of it, as a justification =
for
forming private armies which defied the lawful authorities. Organized crime=
now
took a party label and put forward a program and thereby became better
organized and a more formidable threat to society.
“Thus viol=
ence
acquired moral standing and the public was terrorized for its own good. Many
years before, Samuel Johnson, in upholding the rights of authority, had
qualified his defense by pointing to a corresponding and inherent human rig=
ht
to resist oppresssion: ‘Why all this childish jealousy of the power of
the Crown?… In no government can power be abused long. Mankind will n=
ot
bear it. If a sovereign oppresses his people to a great degree, they will r=
ise
and cut off his head.’ The French Revolution had lowered the threshol=
d of
abuse at which men rose. It proved that cutting off royal heads was easier =
than
had previously been thought and did not bring down the heavens. That undoub=
ted
fact was now a permanent temptation to every enemy of society who wished to
acquire moral respectability for his crimes. It operated, in particular,
throughout the Mediterranean area, where every government oppressed its
subjects to some degree and there were usually no lawful forms of redress. =
In
the past, men with a grievance had suffered in silence or taken to the hills
and robbed. Now the hitherto resigned joined secret societies, and the band=
its
called themselves politicians.”[220]
These secret soc=
ieties
continued the revolution on an international scale. Johnson again: “L=
ike
the Comintern in the 1930s, they were a European phenomenon and, to some
extent, coordinated and centrally directed. But unlike the Comintern, they =
did
not have an ultimate national base, where they could be trained and from wh=
ich
money and arms could flow.
“The most
important figure, or so it was supposed, was Filipo Michele Buonarrotti
(1761-1837), a Pisan by birth, and proud of his descent from Michelangelo.
Becoming a naturalized French citizen, he took part in the French Revolution
and was imprisoned and deported for his part in the conspiracy organized by=
François-Emile
Babeuf, the proto-communist who tried to overthrow the Directory. He came o=
ut
of prison in 1809 and immediately resumed underground work in northern Italy
with Republican elements in the French occupation and local malcontents and=
‘patriots’.
He founded a network called the Adelphi, which migrated to Geneva when the
Austrians took over Lombardy and changed its name to the Sublime Perfect
Masters.
“The Subli=
me
Perfect Masters combined illuminism, freemasonry and radical politics with =
a good
deal of pretentious symbolism. Its structure was hierarchical, only the most
senior levels knowing its inner secrets, and Buonarrotti came closer to the
isolated cell system of modern terrorist groups, which makes them so diffic=
ult
to destroy, even if penetrated. The various police forces never discovered =
much
about his apparatus, which is the reason we know so little about it. In the=
ory
it was formidable, since it had links with a Directive Committee in Paris w=
hich
coordinated Orléanist, Jacobin, Bonapartist, and Republican subversi=
on,
with various German groups, such as the Tugendbund and the Unbedi=
ngren;
with Spanish Masons and communeros; and even with a Russian group ca=
lled
the Union of Salvation, the whole supposedly existing under a mysterious bo=
dy,
also in Geneva, called the Grand Firmament. In Italy, the Sublime Perfect
Masters had links with the Carbonari, which operated in the center and the
south. Contact was maintained by special handshakes, secret codes, invisible
ink and other devices… But it is a notable fact that Buonarrotti, in
particular, and the networks, in general, never once succeeded in organizin=
g a
successful conspiracy or one which can fairly be said to have got off the
ground. Moreover when uprisings did take place and governments were overthr=
own,
as in Spain in 1820, Buonarrotti – like Marx, and indeed Lenin, later
– was taken completely by surprise…”[221]
The major powers=
had
many problems in their struggle against the revolution. One was that it
required large resources and in particular a much larger police (and secret
police) apparatus than any state had hitherto possessed. Secondly, the powe=
rs
were not united amongst themselves. France was still distrusted; Austria did
not want Russian Cossacks settling problems on her territory; Britain, which
had played such an important role in defeating Napoleon, was nevertheless n=
ot
averse to helping this or that revolutionary movement (particularly in the
Iberian Peninsula[222] and
South America) if this suited her balance-of-power politics, and was oppose=
d to
“interventionism on ideological grounds, as practiced by the Holy
Alliance, because its object was to impose or sustain a particular type of
government, which ran directly counter to the Zeitgeist”.[223]
The Zeitgeist=
was anti-monarchist; and even the absolutist rulers felt they could not go
completely against it. They made their first compromise with it in the
conditions they imposed on France in 1818. For, as Hobsbawm writes, while
“the Bourbons were restored,… it was understood that they had to
make concessions to the dangerous spirit of their subjects. The major chang=
es
of the Revolution were accepted, and that inflammatory device, a constituti=
on,
was granted to them – though of course in an extremely moderate form =
–
under the guise of a Charter ‘freely conceded’ by the returned
absolute monarch, Louis XVIII.”[224]
Another compromise was the granting of senior posts to former revolutionari=
es,
“reconciling”, if that were possible, the reactionary King Louis
XVIII with some of the men who had caused his brother Louis XVI’s dea=
th.[225]
And yet making
concessions to the Zeitgeist was only a short-term solution. For
appeasement can never tame a really determined enemy, but rather whets his
appetite for more.
So it was no use
saying, as Friedrich von Gentz, Metternich’s secretary, said to the
Laibach Congress of the Holy Alliance, 1821: “Revolution must be foug=
ht
with flesh and blood. Moral weapons are manifestly powerless.”[226] Mo=
ral
weapons had to be found. Genz knew this as well as anyone. For he
understood that the cause of the revolution lay in the changing religious
beliefs of men, from the true religion to Protestantism to revolutionary
secularism, even he misidentified the true religion with Catholicism:
“Protestantism is the first, the true, the only source of all the vast
evils under which we groan today. Had it merely confined itself to reasonin=
g,
we might have been able and obliged to tolerate it, for a tendency to argue=
is
rooted in human nature. However, once governments agreed to accept
Protestantism as a permitted form of religion, an expression of Christianit=
y, a
right of man; once they… granted it a place in the State beside, or e=
ven
on the ruins of, the only true church, the religious, moral and political o=
rder
of the world was immediately dissolved… The entire French Revolution,=
and
the even worse revolution which is about to break over Germany, have sprung
from this same source.”[227]
What was needed = was another, more powerful spirit to oppose the corrupt spirit of the times, a positive doctrine of religious and political authority that was deeper and truer than the revolutionary doctrine. But none of the great powers was abl= e to provide a positive teaching to reinforce and justify their alternately conciliatory and repressive measures, for the simple reason that none of th= em – with the exception of Russia – was Orthodox, and very few, ev= en in Russia, were capable of communicating that positive message to those infected with the revolutionary contagion. What the great powers did have w= as a negative teaching, a teaching on the evil of the revolution that had some t= ruth in it, but, precisely because it was only negative, little effectiveness. <= o:p>
The most fervent=
ly
anti-revolutionary power, as was to be expected, was the Vatican, which was
trying to make up for its lapse in the time of Napoleon. Thus in his encyli=
cal Mirari vos (1832), Pope Gregory=
XVI
declared that anti-monarchism was a crime against the faith, and that liber=
ty
of conscience flowed from “the most fetid fount of indifferentismR=
21;.
The Vatican was
supported by such writers as Chateaubriand, who “contributed Le
Génie du Christianisme, an immensely influential book which
vindicated Christianity and presented it in a way that appealed to modern
intellectuals. His vision of a spiritually refreshed Catholicism emerging f=
rom
the blood and suffering of the revolution with a chivalric monarchism rising
above the power struggles of the recent past, inspired most of the French
Romantics. But submission to the will of God was no longer appealing to
generations that had become used to the concept of the centrality of Man in=
the
universe…”[228]
But the most elo=
quent
defenders of the old order were two French aristocrats, Count Joseph de
Maistre, a former envoy of Sardinia to Russia, and Viscount Louis de Bonald=
. De
Maistre wrote: “All grandeur, all power, all subordination rests on t=
he
executioner: he is the horror and bond of human association. Remove this
incomprehensible agent from the world, and at that moment order gives way to
chaos, thrones topple, and society disappears. God, Who is the author of
sovereignty, is the author also of punishment.”[229]
De Bonald wrote:
“Today… who does not see the danger of granting anyone and
everyone… the terrible liberty to indoctrinate, in religion and in
politics, a public which everywhere is made up largely of mistaken, ignoran=
t,
and violent men?… There is no true liberty of the press… except
under the guarantee of censorship to prevent licence of thought. There is n=
o civil
liberty without laws to prevent actions that create disorder.”[230]
Berlin writes on=
these
deeply conservative authors: “What the entire Enlightenment has in co=
mmon
is denial of the central Christian doctrine of original sin, believing inst=
ead
that man is born either innocent and good, or morally neutral and malleable=
by
education or environment, or, at worst, deeply defective but capable of rad=
ical
and indefinite improvement by rational education in favourable circumstance=
s,
or by a revolutionary reorganisation of society as demanded, for example, by
Rousseau. It is this denial of original sin that the Church condemned most
severely in Rousseau’s Émile, despite its attack on
materialism, utilitarianism and atheism. It is the powerful reaffirmation o=
f this
Pauline and Augustinian doctrine that is the sharpest single weapon in the
root-and-branch attack on the entire Enlightenment by the French
counter-revolutionary writers Maistre, Bonald and Chateaubriand, at the tur=
n of
the century.
“… T=
he
doctrines of Joseph de Maistre and his followers and allies… formed t=
he
spearhead of the counter-revolution in the early nineteenth century in Euro=
pe.
Maistre held the Enlightenment to be one of the most foolish, as well as the
most ruinous, forms of social thinking. The conception of man as naturally
disposed to benevolence, co-operation and peace, or, at any rate, capable of
being shaped in this direction by appropriate education or legislation, is =
for
him shallow and false. The benevolent Dame Nature of Hume, Holbach and
Helvétius is an absurd figment. History and zoology are the most
reliable guides to nature: they show her to be a field of unceasing slaught=
er.
Men are by nature aggressive and destructive; they rebel over trifles ̵=
1;
the change to the Gregorian calendar in the mid-eighteenth century, or Peter
the Great’s decision to shave the boyars’ beards, provoke viole=
nt
resistance, at times dangerous rebellions. But when men are sent to war, to
exterminate beings as innocent as themselves for no purpose that either army
can grasp, they go obediently to their deaths and scarcely ever mutiny. When
the destructive instinct is evoked men feel exalted and fulfilled. Men do n=
ot
come together, as the Enlightenment teaches, for mutual co-operation and
peaceful happiness; history makes it clear that they are never so united as
when given a common altar upon which to immolate themselves. This is so bec=
ause
the desire to sacrifice themselves or others is at least as strong as any
pacific or constructive impulse.
“Maistre f=
elt
that men are by nature evil, self-destructive animals, full of conflicting
drives, who do not know what they want, want what they do not want, do not =
want
what they want, and it is only when they are kept under constant control and
rigorous discipline by some authoritarian elite – a Church, a State, =
or
some other body from whose decisions there is no appeal – that they c=
an
hope to survive and be saved. Reasoning, analysis, criticism shake the
foundations and destroy the fabric of society. If the source of authority is
declared to be rational, it invites questioning and doubt; but if it is
questioned it may be argued away; its authority is undermined by able sophi=
sts,
and this accelerates the forces of chaos, as in France during the reign of =
the
weak and liberal Louis XVI. If the State is to survive and frustrate the fo=
ols
and knaves who will always seek to destroy it, the source of its authority =
must
be absolute, so terrifying, indeed, that the least attempt to question it m=
ust
entail immediate and terrible sanctions: only then will men learn to obey i=
t.
Without a clear hierarchy of authority – awe-inspiring power –
men’s incurably destructive instincts will breed chaos and mutual
extermination. The supreme power – especially the Church – must
never seek to explain or justify itself in rational terms; for what one man=
can
demonstrate, another may be able to refute. Reason is the thinnest of walls
against the raging seas of violent emotion: on so insecure a basis no perma=
nent
structure can ever be erected. Irrationality, so far from being an obstacle,
has historically led to peace, security and strength, and is indispensable =
to
society: it is rational institutions – republics, elective monarchies,
democracies, associations founded on the enlightened principles of free love
– that collapse soonest; authoritarian Churches, hereditary monarchies
and aristocracies, traditional forms of life, like the highly irrational
institutions of the family, founded on life-long marriage – it is they
that persist.
=
;
“The ph=
ilosophes
proposed to rationalise communications by inventing a universal language fr=
ee
from the irrational survivals, the idiosyncratic twists and turns, the
capricious peculiarities of existing tongues; if they were to succeed, this
would be disastrous, for it is precisely the individual historical developm=
ent
of a language belonging to a people that absorbs, enshrines and encapsulate=
s a
vast wealth of half-conscious, half-remembered collective experience. What =
men
call superstition and prejudice are but the crust of custom which by sheer
survival has shown itself proof against the ravages and vicissitudes of its
long life; to lose it is to lose the shield that protects men’s natio=
nal
existence, their spirit, the habits, memories, faith that have made them wh=
at
they are. The conception of human nature which the radical critics have
promulgated and on which their whole house of cards rests is an infantile
fantasy. Rousseau asks why it is that man, who was born free, is neverthele=
ss
everywhere in chains; Maistre replies, ‘This mad pronouncement, Man is
born free, is the opposite of the truth.’ ‘It would be equally
reasonable,’ adds the eminent critic Émile Faguet in an essay =
on
Maistre, ‘to say that sheep are born carnivorous, and everywhere nibb=
le
grass.’ Men are not made for freedom, nor for peace. Such freedom and
peace as they have had were obtained only under wisely authoritarian
governments that have repressed the destructive critical intellect and its
socially disintegrating effects. Scientists, intellectuals, lawyers,
journalists, democrats, Jansenists, Protestants, Jews, atheists – the=
se
are the sleepless enemy that never ceases to gnaw at the vitals of society.=
The
best government the world has ever known was that of the Romans: they were =
too wise
to be scientists themselves; for this purpose they hired the clever, volati=
le,
politically incapable Greeks. Not the luminous intellect, but dark instincts
govern man and societies; only elites which understand this, and keep the
people from too much secular education, which is bound to make them
over-critical and discontented, can give to men as much happiness and justi=
ce
and freedom as, in this vale of tears, men can expect to have. But at the b=
ack
of everything must lurk the potentiality of force, of coercive power.
“In a stri=
king
image Maistre says that all social order in the end rests upon one man, the
executioner. Nobody wishes to associate with this hideous figure, yet on hi=
m,
so long as men are weak, sinful, unable to control their passions, constant=
ly
lured to their doom by evil temptations or foolish dreams, rest all order, =
all
peace, all society. The notion that reason is sufficient to educate or cont=
rol
the passions is ridiculous. When there is a vacuum, power rushes in; even t=
he
bloodstained monster Robespierre, a scourge sent by the Lord to punish a
country that had departed from the true faith, is more to be admired –
because he did hold France together and repelled her enemies, and created
armies that, drunk with blood and passion, preserved France – than
liberal fumbling and bungling. Louis XIV ignored the clever reasoners of his
time, suppressed heresy, and died full of glory in his own bed. Louis XVI
played amiably with subversive ideologists who had drunk at the poisoned we=
ll
of Voltaire, and died on the scaffold. Repression, censorship, absolute
sovereignty, judgements from which there is no appeal, these are the only
methods of governing creatures whom Maistre described as half men, half bea=
sts,
monstrous centaurs at once seeking after God and fighting him, longing to l=
ove
and create, but in perpetual danger of falling victims to their own blindly
destructive drives, held in check by a combination of force and traditional
authority and, above all, a faith incarnated in historically hallowed
institutions that reason dare not touch.
“Nation an=
d race
are realities; the artificial creations of constitution-mongers are bound to
collapse. ‘Nations,’ said Maistre, ‘are born and die like
individuals’; they ‘have a common soul’, especially visib=
le
in their language. And since they are individuals, they should endeavour to
remain of one race. So too Bonald, his closest intellectual ally, regrets t=
hat
the French nation has abandoned its racial purity, thus weakening itself. T=
he
question of whether the French are descended from Franks or Gauls, whether
their institutions are Roman or German in origin, with the implication that
this could dictate a form of life in the present, although it has its roots=
in
political controversies in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, now takes the colour of mystical organicism, which transcends, a=
nd
is proof against, all forms of discursive reasoning. Natural growth alone is
real for Maistre. Only time, only history, can create authority that men can
worship and obey: mere military dictatorship, a work of individual human ha=
nds,
is brutal force without spiritual power; he calls it bâtonocratie<=
/u>,
and predicts the end of Napoleon.
“In similar strain Bonald denounce individualism whether as a social doctrine or an intellectual method of analysing historical phenomena. The inventions of ma= n, he declared, are precarious aids compared to the divinely ordained institut= ions that penetrate man’s very being – language, family, the worship= of God. By whom were they invented? Whenever a child is born there are father, mother, family, language, God; this is the basis of all that is genuine and lasting, not the arrangements of men drawn from the world of shopkeepers, w= ith their contracts, or promises, or utility, or material goods. Liberal individualism inspired by the insolent self-confidence of mutinous intellectuals has led to the inhuman competition of bourgeois society, in w= hich the strongest and the fastest win and the weak go to the wall. Only the Chu= rch can organise a society in which the ablest are held back so that the whole = of society can progress and the weakest and least greedy also reach the goal.<= o:p>
“These glo=
omy
doctrines became the inspiration of monarchist politics in France, and toge=
ther
with the notion of romantic heroism and the sharp contrast between creative=
and
uncreative, historic and unhistoric, individuals and nations, duly inspired
nationalism, imperialism, and finally, in their most violent and pathologic=
al
form, Fascist and totalitarian doctrines in the twentieth century.”
And yet Berlin w=
as
wrong in attributing both fascism and communism to the monarchical backlash
against the French Revolution. Fascism, it is true, was based on worship of=
the
people, its historical tradition and its State. However, the Russian and ot=
her
communist revolutions were in every way the descendants of the universalist=
and
internationalist French Revolution, whose catastrophic failure they failed =
to
study properly (not considering it to be a failure, but a glorious success!)
and which they were therefore condemned to repeat on a still vaster and
bloodier scale.
But de Maistre w=
as
also wrong in thinking that the Catholic idea, the idea that the evil passi=
ons
can be tamed by blind obedience to an unquestioned, absolute authority, cou=
ld
stop the revolution. The Catholic idea was now dead – Napoleon killed=
it
when he took the crown from the Pope and crowned himself. Only the Orthodox
idea, the idea brought to Paris by the Russian Tsar, remained…
2.
THE EAST: THE MAN-GOD DEFEATED
Fear God, honour the king.
I Peter 2.17.
In the reign of Alexander I Masonry tr=
ied
finally to substitute for Orthodoxy a certain ‘true Church’, or
‘inner Christianity’, in the system of State power, leaving the
former religion only for governing ‘the plebs’.
Valery Baidin.[232]
The not-born-in-the-purple emperor, who
wanted to be a not-yet-anointed prophet, did not foresee that, besides phys=
ical
and political forces, states are inspired and act through higher moral forc=
es,
that violence elicits against itself those same forces which are in submiss=
ion
to it, that cunning can be outwitted or destroyed by desperation, and that
right by its firmness and foresight is always more powerful than craftiness=
and
spite.
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (1813)=
.[233]
Napoleon never
conquered two of his enemies: Britain and Russia; and it is tempting to see=
in
these nations two principles that the revolution failed to subordinate to
itself in the way that it had (at least temporarily) subordinated Catholici=
sm
to itself. These were, first: the love of freedom - not the ecstatic,
collectivist, Rousseauist “freedom to” that the revoluti=
on
represented, but the more sober, individualist, Lockean “freedom f=
rom”
that was ingrained especially in the stubborn spirit of the island race. In=
the
course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the revolution made
considerable inroads into English life, but never destroyed its restraining,
individualistic, anti-despotic influence completely. The second, and far
greater, principle was the love of God in Orthodoxy, which inspired Russia =
to
drive the Grande Armée all the way from burning Moscow to the
streets of Paris. Throughout the nineteenth century Russia remained the main
bulwark of civilisation against the revolution, but finally succumbed to it=
in
the catastrophe of 1917.
Tsar
Paul I of Russia
Beginning with T=
sar
Paul I, the son of Emperor Peter III and Empress Catherine II, Russia began,
slowly and hesitantly, to recover from the abyss of westernism and absoluti=
sm
initiated by Peter the Great.
St. John Maximov=
ich
writes: “The Tsarevich Paul Petrovich, who spent his childhood at the
court of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, - his mother could not exercise an
immediate influence on him, - was very different in his character and
convictions from the Empress Catherine. Catherine II preferred to remove her
son from the inheritance and make her eldest grandson, Alexander Pavlovich,=
her
heir… At the end of 1796 Catherine II finally decided to appoint
Alexander as her heir, passing Paul by, but she suddenly and unexpectedly d=
ied.
The heir, Tsarevich Paul Petrovich, ascended the throne…”[234]
Tsar Paul, who h=
ad
been educated by Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, and shared his teacher̵=
7;s
devotion to pre-Petrine Russia, witnessed to the terrible condition the
eighteenth-century tsars had brought Russia: “On ascending the throne=
of
All-Russia, and entering in accordance with duty into various parts of the
state administration, at the very beginning of the inspection We saw that t=
he
state economy, in spite of the changes in income made at various times, had
been subjected to extreme discomforts from the continuation over many years=
of
unceasing warfar and other circumstances. Expenses exceeded income. The def=
icit
was increasing from year to year, multiplying the internal and external deb=
ts;
in order to make up a part of this deficit, large sums were borrowed, which
brought great harm and disorder with them…”[235]
The coronation t=
ook
place in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow on April 5, 1797, the first day =
of
Holy Pascha. The rite moved a significant step away from the symbolism of t=
he
First Rome, which had been the model of the eighteenth-century Tsars, and b=
ack
to the symbolism of the New Rome of Constantinople, the Mother-State of Holy
Rus’. For before putting on the purple, Paul ordered that he be veste=
d in
the dalmatic, one of the royal vestments of the Byzantine emperors…
Then, writes
Protopriest Lev Lebedev, “he himself read out a new law [Uc=
hrezhdenie]
on the Imperial Family which he had composed together with [the
Tsaritsa] Maria Fyodorovna. By this law he abolished Peter I’s decree=
of
1722 on the right of the Russian Autocrat to appoint the Heir to the Thone
according to his will and revived the Basic Act of 1613. From now on=
and
forever (!) a strict order of succession was established according to
which the eldest son became his father’s heir, and in the case of
childlessness – his elder brother. The law also foresaw various other=
cases,
determining the principles of the succession to the Throne in accordance wi=
th the
ancient, pre-Petrine (!) Russian customs and certain important new rules
(for example, a Member of the Imperial Family wanting to preserve his right=
s to
the succession must enter only into an equal by blood marriage with a
member of a royal or ruling house, that is, who is not lower than himself by
blood). Paul I’s new law once and for all cut off the danger in Russi=
a of
those ‘revolution’-coups which had taken place in the eighteenth
century. And it meant that the power of the nobility over the Russian Tsars=
was
ending; now they could be independent of the nobility’s desires and
sympathies. The autocracy was restored in Russia! Deeply wounded and=
‘offended’,
the nobility immediately, from the moment of the proclamation of the law
‘On the Imperial Family’ entered into opposition to Paul I. The
Tsar had to suffer the first and most powerful blow of the opposition. This
battle between the Autocrat and the nobility was decisive, it determ=
ined
the future destiny of the whole state. It also revealed who was who =
in
Great Russia. All the historians who hate Paul I are not able to diminish t=
he
significance of the Law of 1797, they recognise that it was exceptionally
important and correct, but they remark that it was the only outstanding act=
of
this Emperor (there were no others supposedly). But such an act would
have been more than sufficient for the whole reign! For this act signified a
radical counter-coup – or, following the expression of the time,
counter-revolution - to that which Catherine II had accomplished.
“However, =
the
haters lie here, as in everything else! The law was not the only important =
act
of his Majesty. On the same day of 1797 Paul I proclaimed a manifest=
o in
which for the first time the serf-peasants were obliged to make an
oath of allegiance to the Tsars and were called, not ‘slaves̵=
7;,
but ‘beloved subjects’, that is, they were recognised as=
citizens
of the State! There is more! Paul I issued a decree forbidding l=
andowners
to force serfs to work corvée for more than three days in the
week: the other three days the peasants were to work for themselves, and on
Sundays – rest and celebrate ‘the day of the Lord’, like =
all
Christians.[236]
Under the threat of severe penalties it was confirmed that masters were
forbidden to sell families of peasants one by one. It was forbidden =
to
subject serfs older than seventy to physical punishments. (And at the same =
time
it was permitted to apply physical punishments to noblemen who
had been condemned for criminal acts.) All this was nothing other than t=
he
beginning of the liberation of the Russian peasants from serfdom! In no=
ble
circles of the time it was called a ‘revolution from above’, and
for the first time they said of about their Emperor: ‘He is mad!̵=
7;
Let us recall that this word was used in relation to the ‘peasantR=
17;
politics of Paul I. He even received a special ‘Note’ from one
assembly of nobles, in which it was said that ‘the Russian people =
has
not matured sufficiently for the removal of physical
punishments’.”[237]
“We know o=
f a
case when the Tsar came to the defence of some peasants whose landowner was
about to sell them severally, without their families and land, so as to make
use of the peasants’ property. The peasants refused to obey, and the
landowner informed the governor of the rebellion. But the governor did not =
fail
to carry out his duty and quickly worked out what was happening. On receivi=
ng
news about what was happening, Tsar Paul declared the deal invalid, ordered
that the peasants be left in their places, and that the landowner be severe=
ly
censured in his name. The landowner’s conscience began to speak to hi=
m:
he gathered the village commune and asked the peasants for forgiveness. Lat=
er
he set off for St. Petersburg and asked for an audience with his Majesty.
‘Well, what did you sort out with your peasants, my lord? What did th=
ey
say?’ inquired the Emperor of the guilty man. ‘They said to me,
your Majesty: God will forgive…’ ‘Well, since God =
and
they have forgiven you, I also forgive you. But remember from now on that t=
hey
are not your slaves, but my subjects just as you are. You have just been
entrusted with looking after them, and you are responsible for them before =
me,
as I am for Russia before God…’ concluded the Sovereign.”=
[238]
The Tsar also ac=
ted to
humble the pride of the Guards regiments which, together with the nobility,=
had
acted the role of king-makers in the eighteenth century. “He forbade =
the
assigning of noblemen’s children, babies, into the guards (which had =
been
done before him to increase ‘the number of years served’). The
officers of the guards were forbidden to drive in four- or six-horse carria=
ges,
to hide their hands in winter in fur muffs, or to wear civilian clothing in
public. No exception was made for them by comparison with other army office=
rs.
At lectures and inspections the Guards were asked about rules and codes with
all strictness. How much, then and later, did they speak (and they still wr=
ite
now!) about the ‘cane discipline’ and the amazing cruelties in =
the
army under Paul I, the nightmarish punishments which were simply means of
mocking the military…. Even among the historians who hate Paul I we f=
ind
the admission that the strictnesses of the Emperor related only to the o=
fficers
(from the nobility), while with regard to the soldiers he was mo=
st
concerned about their food and upkeep, manifesting a truly paternal
attentiveness. By that time the ordinary members of the Guards had long been
not nobles, but peasants. And the soldierly mass of the Guards of Paul I ve=
ry
much loved him and were devoted to him. Officers were severely punis=
hed
for excessive cruelty to soldiers… On the fateful night of the murder=
of
Paul I the Guards soldiers rushed to support him. The Preobrazhen=
sky regiment
refused to shout ‘hurrah!’ to Alexander Pavlovich as to =
the
new Emperor, since they were not sure whether his Majesty Paul I was truly
dead. Two soldiers of the regiment demanded that their commanders gi=
ve
them exact proof of the death of the former Emperor. These soldiers were not
only not punished, but were sent as an ‘embassy’ of the
Preobrazhensky to the grave of Paul I. On their return the regiment gave the
oath of allegiance to Alexander I. That was the real situation of the
Russian soldier of Paul’s times, and not their fictitious
‘rightlessness’!”[239]
“The Emper=
or
Paul’s love for justice and care for the simple people was expressed =
also
in the accessibility with which he made his subjects happy, establishing the
famous box in the Winter palace whose key was possessed by him personally a=
nd
into which the first courtier and the last member of the simple people could
cast their letters with petitions for the Tsar’s immediate defence or
mercy. The Tsar himself emptied the box every day and read the petitions,
leaving not a single one of them unanswered.
“There was
probably no sphere in the State which did not feel the influence of the
industrious Monarch. Thus he ordered the minting of silver rubles to strugg=
le
against he deflation in the value of money. The Sovereign himself sacrifice=
d a
part of the court’s silver on this important work. He said that he
himself would eat on tin ‘until the ruble recovers its rate’. A=
nd
the regulation on medical institutions worked out by the Emperor Paul could=
be
used in Russia even in our day.”[240]
“Paul I ga=
ve
hierarchs in the Synod the right themselves to choose a candidate for
the post of over-procurator, took great care for the material situation of =
the
clergy, and the widows and orphans of priests, and forbade physical punishm=
ents
for priests before they had been defrocked.”[241]
He also increase=
d the
lands of hierarchical houses and the pay of the parish clergy, and freed the
clergy from being pressed into army service. The power of bishops was exten=
ded
to all Church institutions and to all diocesan servers.[242] In
general, as K.A. Papmehl writes, “Paul proved to be much more generous
and responsive to the Church’s financial needs than his mother. Altho=
ugh
this may to some – perhaps considerable – extent be attributed =
to
his general tendency to reverse her policies, it was probably due, in at le=
ast
equal measure, to his different attitude toward the Church based, as it
undoubtedly was, on sincere Christian belief…. One symptom of this
different attitude was that, unlike his predecessor – or, indeed,
successor, Paul dealt with the Synod not through the Ober-Prokurator,
but through the senior ecclesiastical member: first Gavriil and later
Amvrosii.”[243]
“One=
of
the Tsar’s contemporaries, N.A. Sablukov, who had the good fortune,
thanks to his service at the Royal Court, to know the Emperor personally,
remembered the Emperor Paul in his memoirs as ‘a deeply religious man,
filled with a true piety and the fear of God…. He was a magnanimous m=
an,
ready to forgive offences and recognise his mistakes. He highly prized
righteousness, hated lies and deceit, cared for justice and was merciless in
his persecution of all kinds of abuses, in particular usury and bribery.=
217;
“The well-=
known
researcher of Paul, Shabelsky-Bork, writes: ‘While he was Tsarevich a=
nd
Heir, Paul would often spend the whole night in prayer. A little carpet is
preserved in Gatchina; on it he used to pray, and it is worn through by his
knees.’ The above-mentioned N.A. Sablukov recounts, in agreement with
this: ‘Right to the present day they show the places on which Paul was
accustomed to kneel, immersed in prayer and often drenched in tears. The
parquet is worn through in these places. The room of the officer sentry in
which I used to sit during my service in Gatchina was next to Paul’s
private study, and I often heard the Emperor’s sighs when he was stan=
ding
at prayer.’
“The histo=
rical
records of those years have preserved a description of the following event:
‘A watchman had a strange and wonderful vision when he was standing
outside the summer palace… The Archangel Michael stood before the
watchman suddenly, in the light of heavenly glory, and the watchman was
stupefied and in trembling from this vision… And the Archangel ordered
that a cathedral should be raised in his honour there and that this command
should be passed on to the Emperor Paul immediately. The special event went=
up
the chain of command, of course, and Paul Petrovich was told about everythi=
ng.
But Paul Petrovich replied: “I already know”: he had seen
everything beforehand, and the appearance to the watchman was a kind of
repetition…’ From this story we can draw the conclusion that Ts=
ar
Paul was counted worthy also of revelations from the heavenly world…&=
#8221;[244]
The
Annexation of Georgia and the Edinoverie
Tsar Paul’=
s love
for the Church found expression in two important events in year 1800 that
strengthened, respectively, the security of the Orthodox world against the
external foe, and its internal unity: the annexation of Georgia and the reu=
nion
of some of the Old Believers with the Orthodox Church on a “One
Faith” (Edinoverie) basis.
Since the Georgi=
ans
made their first appeal for Russian protection in 1587, they had suffered
almost continual invasions from the Persians and the Turks, leading to many
martyrdoms, of which the most famous was that of Queen Ketevan in 1624. One
king, Rostom, even adopted Islam and persecuted Orthodoxy. In fact, from 16=
34
until the ascent of the throne by King Wakhtang in 1701, all the sovereigns=
of
Georgia were Muslim. The eighteenth century saw only a small improvement, a=
nd
in 1762 King Teimuraz II travelled to Russian for help. In 1783 protection =
was
formally offered to King Heraclius II of Kartli-Kakhetia, and the Catholico=
s of
Georgia became a member of the Russian Holy Synod while retaining his
title.
“The last =
most
heavy trial for the Church of Iberia,” writes P. Ioseliani, was the
irruption of Mahomed-Khan into the weakened state of Georgia, in the year 1=
795.
In the month of September of that year the Persian army took the city of
Tiflis, seized almost all the valuable property of the royal house, and red=
uced
the palace and the whole of the city into a heap of ashes and of ruins. The
whole of Georgia, thus left at the mercy of the ruthless enemies of the nam=
e of
Christ, witnessed the profanation of everything holy, and the most abominab=
le
deeds and practices carried on in the temples of God. Neither youth nor old=
age
could bring those cruel persecutors to pity; the churches were filled with
troops of murderers and children were killed at their mothers’ breast=
s.
They took the Archbishop of Tiflis, Dositheus, who had not come out of the
Synod of Sion, made him kneel down before an image of [the most holy Mother=
of
God], and, without mercy on his old age, threw him from a balcony into the
river Kur; then they plundered his house, and set fire to it. The pastors of
the Church, unable to hide the treasures and other valuable property of the
Church, fell a sacrifice to the ferocity of their foes. Many images of sain=
ts
renowned in those days perished for ever; as, for instance, among others, t=
he
image of [the most holy Mother of God] of the Church of Metekh, and that of=
the
Synod of Sion. The enemy, having rifled churches, destroyed images, and
profaned the tombs of saints, revelled in the blood of Christians; and the
inhuman Mahomed-Khan put an end to these horrors only when there remained n=
ot a
living soul in Tiflis.
“King Geor=
ge
XIII, who ascended the throne of Georgia (A.D. 1797-1800) only to see his
subjects overwhelmed and rendered powerless by their incessant and hopeless
struggles with unavoidable dangers from enemies of the faith and of the peo=
ple,
found the resources of the kingdom exhausted by the constant armaments nece=
ssary
for its own protection; before his eyes lay the ruins of the city, villages
plundered and laid waste, churches, monasteries, and hermitages demolished,
troubles within the family, and without it the sword, fire, and inevitable
ruin, not only of the Church, but also of the people, yea, even of the very
name of the people. In the fear of God, and trusting to His providence, he =
made
over Orthodox Georgia in a decided manner to the Tzar of Russia, his
co-religionist; and thus obtained for her peace and quiet. It pleased God,
through this king, to heal the deep wounds of an Orthodox kingdom.
“Feeling t=
hat
his end was drawing near, he, with the consent of all ranks and of the peop=
le,
requested the Emperor Paul I to take Georgia into his subjection for ever (=
A.D.
1800). The Emperor Alexander I, when he mounted the throne, promised to pro=
tect
the Georgian people of the same faith with himself, which had thus given it=
self
over unreservedly and frankly to the protection of Russia. In his manifesto=
to
the people of Georgia (A.D. 1801) he proclaimed the following:- ‘One =
and
the same dignity, one and the same honour, and humanity laid upon us the sa=
cred
duty, after hearing the prayers of sufferers, to grant them justice and equ=
ity
in exchange for their affliction, security for their persons and for their
property, and to give to all alike the protection of the law.’”=
[245]
What we have cal=
led
“Georgia” was in fact the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in Eastern
Georgia. But there was another independent Georgian kingdom in the West,
Imeretia. After the annexation of the eastern kingdom, “the Russian
government,” as we read in the Life of Hieroschemamonk Hilarion
the Georgian of Mount Athos, “initiated correspondence with the Imere=
tian
king concerning the uniting of his nation with Russia. King Solomon II soug=
ht
the counsel of his country’s foremost nobles, and in 1804, due to
pressure from Russia, he was left with little choice but to set forth the
following: since the kind did not have an heir to the throne, Imeretia woul=
d retain
her indepedence until his death, remaining in brotherly relations with Russ=
ia
as between two realms of the same faith. The Russian army had free passage
across Imeretian territory to the Turkish border, and the Imeretian army was
required to render them aid. The relations of the two countries were to be
upheld in those sacred terms which are proper to God’s anointed rulers
and Christian peoples united in an indivisible union of soul – eterna=
lly
and unwaveringly. But after the king’s death the legislation of the
Russian Empire would be introduced. The resolution was then sent to the
Governor-General of the Caucasus in Tbilisi for forwarding to Tsar Alexande=
r I.
“Despite t=
he
general approval of the resolution by the king’s subjects, one noblem=
an,
Prince Zurab Tsereteli, began plotting how he could seize the Imeretian thr=
one
for himself. He first attempted to erode the friendly relations between the=
two
monarchs by slandering each to the other. Unable to sow discord, he began a
communication with the Russian governor-general of the Caucasus, Alexander
Tormasov. Depicting the royal suite in the darkest colors to the
governor-general, after repeated intrigues he finally succeeded in his desi=
gns.
Eventually, the report reached the tsar. He, believing the slander, ordered
Tormasov to lure Solomon II to Tbilisi and escort him to Russia, where he w=
ould
remain a virtual prisoner.
“Not able =
to
believe that others could be so base, treacherous and ignoble, the king fell
into the trap set by Tormasov and Prince Zurab. Fr. Ise [the future
Hieroschemamonk Hilarion] had initially warned the king of Prince ZurabR=
17;s
disloyalty. However, upon learning of his wife’s reposed he returned =
to
Kutaisi and was unable to furthr counsel the king.
“King Solo=
mon II
and his entire retinue were eventually coaxed all the way to Tbilisi. There
they were put under house arrest; the plan being to send the king to live o=
ut
his days in a palace in St. Petersburg. Preferring exile to imprisonment, t=
he
king and his noblemen conceived a plan of escape and fled across the border=
to
Turkey. There, with Fr. Ise and his retinue, he lived out the remainder of =
his
life. After great deprivations and aborted attempts to reclaim the Imeretian
Kingdom from Russia, King Solomon II reposed at Trebizond on February 19, 1=
815,
in his forty-first year…
“After the
king’s death, Fr. Ise intended to set out for Imeretia (then annexed =
to
Russia) no matter what the consequences. He informed all the courtiers, who
numbered about six hundred men, and suggested that they follow his example.
Many of them accepted his decision joyfully, but fear of the tsar’s w=
rath
hampered this plan. Fr. Ise reassured everyone, promising to take upon hims=
elf
the task of mediating before the tsar. He immediately wrote out a petition =
in
the name of all the princes and other members of the retinue, and sent it to
the tsar. The sovereign graciously received their petition, restored them to
their former ranks, and returned their estates…”[246]
The annexation of
Georgia marked an important step forward in Russia’s progress to beco=
ming
the Third Rome. In the eighteenth century the gathering of the Russian lands
had been completed, and the more or less continuous wars with Turkey
demonstrated Russia’s determination to liberate the Orthodox of the
Balkans and the Middle East. Georgia was the first non-Russian Orthodox nat=
ion
to enter the empire of the Third Rome on a voluntary basis…
At the same time,
however, there was a large community of believers within Russia, the Old
Believers, that rejected the right of the Russian Church and State to lead
Orthodoxy. But a movement began among some Old Believer communities towards
union with the Orthodox on the basis of edinoverie, or “One
Faith” – that is,
agreement on dogmas and the authority of the Orthodox hierarchy, but with t=
he
former Old Believers allowed to retain the pre-Niconian rites.
“Before
1800,” writes K.V. Glazkov, “almost all the Old Believer
communities had united with the Orthodox Church on their own conditions.
Besides, there were quite a few so-called crypto-Old Believers, who formally
belonged to the ruling Church, but who in their everyday life prayed and li=
ved
according the Old Believer ways (there were particularly many of these amid=
st
the minor provincial nobility and merchant class). This state of affairs was
evidently not normal: it was necessary to work out definite rules, common f=
or
all, for the union of the Old Believers with the Orthodox Church. As a resu=
lt
of negotiations with the Muscovite Old Believers the latter in 1799 put for=
ward
the conditions under which they would agree to accept a priesthood from the
Orthodox Church. These conditions, laid out in 16 points, partly represented
old rules figuring in the 1793 petition of the Starodub ‘agreers̵=
7;,
and partly new ones relating to the mutual relations of the
‘one-faithers’ with the Orthodox Church. These relations requir=
ed
the union of the ‘one-faithers’ with the Orthodox Church, but
allowed for their being to a certain degree isolated. On their basis the
Muscovite Old Believers submitted a petition to his Majesty for their reuni=
on
with the Orthodox Church, and Emperor Paul I wrote at the bottom of this
document: ‘Let this be. October 27, 1800.’ This petition with t=
he
royal signature was returned to the Muscovite Old Believers and was accepte=
d as
complete confirmation of their suggested conditions for union, as an eternal
act of the recognition of the equal validity and honour of Old Believerism =
and
Orthodoxy.
“But on th=
e same
day, with the remarks (or so-called ‘opinions’) of Metropolitan
Plato of Moscow, conditions were confirmed that greatly limited the petitio=
n of
the Old Believers. These additions recognised reunited Old Believerism as b=
eing
only a transitional stage on the road to Orthodoxy, and separated the
‘old-faith’ parishes as it were into a special semi-independent
ecclesiastical community. Wishing to aid a change in the views of those
entering into communion with the Church on the rites and books that they had
acquired in Old Believerism, and to show that the Old Believers were falsely
accusing the Church of heresies, Metropolitan Plato called the
‘agreers’ ‘one-faithers’… “The
one-faithers petitioned the Holy Synod to remove the curses [of the Moscow
Council of 1666-1667] on holy antiquity, but Metropolitan Plato replied in =
his
additional remarks that they were imposed with justice. The Old Believers
petitioned for union with the Church while keeping the old rites, but
Metropolitan Plato left them their rites only for a time, only ‘in the
hope’ that with time the reunited would abandon the old rites and acc=
ept
the new… “Amidst the
hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church the view became more and more
established that the ‘One Faith’ was a transitional step towards
Orthodoxy. But in fact the One Faith implies unity in dogmatic teaching =
and
the grace of the Holy Spirit with the use in the Divine services of various
Orthodox rites. But the old rite continued to be perceived as incorrect,
damaged and in no way blessed by the Church, but only ‘by condescensi=
on
not forbidden’ for a time.”[247] In the last part=
of
the reign of Catherine II, following the excesses of Jacobinism in France, a
reaction had set in against Masonry. Catherine backed away from her
Enlightenment ideas when she saw the effect they produced in the revolution.
“’Yesterday I remembered,” she wrote to Grimm in 1794,
“that you told me more than once: this century is the century of
preparations. I will add that these preparations consisted in preparing dirt
and dirty people of various kinds, who produce, have produced and will prod=
uce
endless misfortunes and an infinite number of unfortunate people.’ “The next =
year
she categorically declared that the Encyclopédie had only two
aims: the one – to annihilate the Christian religion, and the other
– royal power. ‘I will calmly wait for the right moment when you
will see how right is my opinion concerning the philosophers and their
hangers-on that they participated in the revolution…, for
Helvétius and D’Alambert both admitted to the deceased Prussian
king that this book had only two aims: the first – to annihilate the
Christian religion, and the second – to annihilate royal power. They
spoke about this already in 1777.”[248] In his estimate =
of
Masonry and French influence, if in little else, Tsar Paul was in agreement
with his mother. Well-known Masons were required to sign that they would not
open lodges (the rumour that Paul himself became a Mason in the house of I.=
P.
Elagin in 1778 is false), and the great General Suvorov was sent to Vienna =
to
join Austria and Britain in fighting the French.[249] But
the French continued to advance through Europe, and when, in 1797, Napoleon
threatened the island of Malta, the knights of the Order of the Maltese Cro=
ss,
who had ruled the island since the 16th century, appealed to the
protection of Tsar Paul. Paul accepted the responsibility, and in gratitude=
the
Maltese offered that he become their Grand Master. The Order was Catholic, =
but
anti-French and anti-revolutionary, so Paul accepted.[250] In 1798 Napoleon
seized Malta. Paul then entered into an alliance union with Prussia, Austria
and England against France. A Russian fleet entered the Mediterranean, and =
in
1799 a Russian army under Suvorov entered Northern Italy, liberating the
territory from the French. However, writes
Lebedev, “in 1800 England seized the island of Malta, taking it
away from the French and not returning it to the Maltese Order. Paul I sent
Suvorov with his armies back to Russia and demanded that Prussia take decis=
ive
measures against England (the seizure of Hanover), threatening to break
relations and take Hanover, the homeland of the English monarchs, with Russ=
ian
forces. But at the same time there began direct relations between Paul and
Napoleon. They began in an unusual manner. Paul challenged Napoleon to a
duel so as to decide State quarrels by means of a personal contest, wit=
hout
shedding the innocent blood of soldiers. Bonaparte declined from the duel, =
but
had a high opinion of Paul I’s suggestion, and as a sign of respect
released his Russian prisoners without any conditions, providing them with =
all
that they needed at France’s expense. Paul I saw that with the
establishment of Napoleon in power, an end had been put to the revolution in
France.[251]
Therefore he concluded a union with Napoleon against England (with the aim =
of
taking Malta away from her and punishing her for her cunning), and united
Russia to the ‘continental blockade’ that Napoleon had construc=
ted
against England, undermining her mercantile-financial might.[252]
Moreover, in counsel with Napoleon, Paul I decided [on January 12, 1801] to
send a big Cossack corps to India – the most valuable colony of the
English.[253]
To this day his Majesty’s order has been deemed ‘mad’ and
‘irrational’. But those who say this conceal the fact that the =
plan
for this Russian expedition against India did not at all belong to Paul I: =
it
arose under Catherine II and was seriously considered by her (Paul I only p=
ut
it into action). “Russia=
217;s
break with England and the allies signified for them catastrophe and in any
case an irreparable blow to the British pocket, and also to the
pocket of the major Russian land-owners and traders (English trade in
Russia had been very strong for a long time!). From the secret masonic <=
/i>centres
of England and Germany an order was delivered to the Russian Masons to
remove the Empeor and as quickly as possible! “Long
disturbed by Paul I’s attitude, the Russian nobility were quick to
respond to the Masonic summons. Even before this,… in 1798 the Russian
Masons had succeeded in sowing dissension in the Royal Family. They slander=
ed
the Tsaritsa Maria Fyodorovna of supposedly trying to rule her husband and
instead of him. At the same time he was ‘set up with’ the beauty
Lopukhina, the daughter of a very powerful Mason, and a faithful plotter. B=
ut
the affair was foiled through the nobility of the Emperor. Learning that
Lopukhina loved Prince Gagarin, Paul I arranged their marriage, since he was
just good friends with Lopukhina. The Masons had to save the situation in s=
uch
a way that Prince Gagarin himself began to help his own wife come cl=
oser
to Paul I. She settled in the Mikhailov palace and became a very valuable a=
gent
of the plotters. From the autumn of 1800 the plot rapidly acquired a system=
atic
character. Count N.P. Panin (the college of foreign affairs) was drawn into=
it,
as was General Count Peter Alexeyevich von der Pahlen, the governor of
Petersburg and a very close advisor of the Tsar, General Bennigsen (also a
German), Admiral Ribas (a native of the island of Malta), the brothers Plat=
o,
Nicholas and Valerian Zubov and their sister, in marriage Princes Zherbtsov=
a,
the senators Orlov, Chicherin, Tatarinov, Tolstoy, Torschinsky, Gene=
rals
Golitsyn, Depreradovich, Obolyaninov, Talysin, Mansurov, Uvarov, Argamakov,=
the
officers Colonel Tolbanov, Skaryatin, a certain Prince Yashvil, Lieutenant
Marin and very many others (amongst them even General M.I. Kutuzov, one of =
the
prominent Masons of those years). At the head of the conspiracy stood the <=
i>English
consul in Petersburg, Sir Charles Whitford. According to certain data,
through him England paid the plotters two million rubles in gold. “The most
important plotters were the Mason-Illuminati, who acted according to the
principle of their founder Weishaupt: ‘slander, slander – somet=
hing
will stick!’ Floods of slanderous inventions poured onto the head of =
the
Emperor Paul I. Their aim was to ‘prove’ that he was mad, menta=
lly
ill and therefore in the interests of the people (!) and dynasty (!) he cou=
ld
not remain in power. The slander was strengthened by the fact that the
Emperor’s orders either were not carried out, or were distorted to an
absurd degree, or in his name instructions of a crazy character were given =
out.
Von Pahlen was especially successful in this. He began to insinuate to Paul=
I
that his son Alexander Pavlovich (and also Constantine), with the support of
the Empress, wanted to cast him from the throne. And when Paul I was upset =
by
these communications, it was insinuated to his sons and Alexander and
Constantine that the Emperor by virtue of a paranoid illness was intending =
to
imprison them together with their mother for good, while he was supposedly
intending to place the young Prince Eugene of Wurtemburg, who had then arri=
ved
in Russia, on the throne. Noble society was frightened by the fact that Pau=
l I
in a fit of madness [supposedly] wanted to execute some, imprison others and
still others send to Siberia. Pahlen was the person closest to the Tsar and=
they
could not not believe him! While he, as he later confessed, was trying =
to
deceive everyone, including Great Prince Alexander. At first the latter was
told that they were talking about removing his father the Emperor from power
(because of his ‘illness’), in order that Alexander should beco=
me
regent-ruler. Count N.P. Panin sincerely believed precisely in this outcome=
of
the affair, as did many other opponents of Paul I who had not lost the last
trace of humanity. At first Alexander did not at all agree with the plot, a=
nd
prepared to suffer everything from his father to the end. But Panin, and th=
en
Pahlen convinced him that the coup was necessary for the salvation of the
Fatherland! Alexander several times demanded an oath from the plotters =
that
they would not allow any violence to his father and would preserve his life.
These oaths were given, but they lied intentionally, as Pahlen later boaste=
d,
only in order to ‘calm the conscience’ of Alexander.[254] Th=
ey
convinced Constantine Pavlovich in approximately the same way. The coup was
marked for the end of March, 1801. Before this Ribas died, and Panin landed=
up
in exile, from which he did not manage to return. The whole leadership of t=
he
plot passed to Pahlen, who from the beginning wanted to kill the Emperor=
. Many
people faithful to his Majesty knew about this, and tried to warn him. N=
apoleon
also heard about all this through his own channels, and hastened to inf=
orm
Paul I in time…. On March 7, 1801 Paul I asked Pahlen directly about =
the
plot. He confirmed its existence and said that he himself was standing at
the head of the plotters, since only in this way could he know what was
going on and prevent it all at the necessary moment… This time, too,
Pahlen succeeded in deceiving the Tsar, but he felt that it would not do th=
at
for long, and that he himself ‘was hanging by a thread’. He had=
to
hurry, the more so in that many officials, generals and especially all the
soldiers were devoted to Paul I. Besides, the Jesuits, who were at war with=
the
Illuminati, knew everything about the plot in advance. In the aftern=
oon
of March 11, in the Tsar’s reception-room, Pater Gruber appeared with=
a
full and accurate list of the plotters and data on the details. But they
managed not to admit the Jesuit to an audience with Paul I. Palen told
Alexander that his father had already prepared a decree about his and the w=
hole
Royal Family’s incarceration in the Schlisselburg fortress, and that =
for
that reason it was necessary to act without delay. Detachments of units loy=
al to
Paul I were removed from the Mikhailov castle, where he lived. On March 11,
1801 the father invited his sons Alexander and Constantine and personally a=
sked
them whether they had any part in the conspiracy, and, having received a
negative reply, considered it necessary that they should swear as it were f=
or a
second time to their faithfulness to him as to their Tsar. The sons swor=
e,
deceptively… On the night of the 11th to 12th of
March, 1801, an English ship entered the Neva with the aim of taking the co=
nspirators
on board in case they failed. Before that Charles Whitford had been exiled =
from
Russia. Zherebtsova-Zubova was sent to him in England so as to prepare a pl=
ace
for the conspirators there if it proved necessary to flee. On the night of =
the
12th March up to 60 young officers who had been punished for
misdemeanours were assembled at Palen’s house and literally pumped wi=
th
spirits. One of them drunkenly remarked that it would be good for Russia if=
all
the members of the Royal Family were slaughtered at once! The rest reje=
cted
such an idea with horror, but it spoke volumes! After much drinking they all
moved by night across Mars field to the Mikhailov castle. There the brave
officers were scared to death by some crows which suddenly took wing at nig=
ht in
an enormous flock and raised a mighty cry. As became clear later, some of t=
he
young officers did not even know where they were being led and why! =
But
the majority knew. One by one (and frightening each other), they managed to
enter in two groups into Paul I’s bedroom, having killed one faithful
guard, a chamber-hussar at the doors (the second ran for the sentry). Paul =
I,
hearing the noise of a fight, tried to run through a secret door, but a
tapestry, ‘The School in Athens’, a gift from the murdered king=
and
queen of France, fell on top of him. The plotters caught the Tsar. Bennigsen
declared to him that they were arresting him and that he had to abdicate fr=
om
the throne, otherwise they could not vouch for the consequences. The greatly
disturbed Paul I did not reply. He rushed to a room where a gun was kept,
trying to break out of the ring of his murderers, but they formed a solid w=
all
around him, breathing in the face of the Emperor, reeking of wine and
spitefulness. Where had the courtier nobles disappeared! ‘What have I
done to you?’ asked Paul I. ‘You have tormented us for four
years!’ was the reply. The drunken Nicholas Zubov took hold of the
Emperor by the hand, but the latter struck the scoundrel on the hand and
repulsed him. Zubov took a swing and hit the Tsar on the left temple with a
golden snuff-box given by Catherine II, wounding his temple-bone and eyes.
Covered with blood, Paul I fell to the ground. The brutalized plotters hurl=
ed
themselves at him, trampled on him, beat him, suffocated him. Special zeal =
was
displayed by the Zubovs, Skoriatin, Yashvil, Argamakov and, as people think,
Pahlen (although there are reasons for thinking that he took no personal pa=
rt
in the fight). At this point the sentries made up of Semenovtsy soldiers
faithful to Alexander appeard (the soldiers had not been initiated into the
plot). Bennigsen and Pahlen came out to them and said that the Tsar had died
from an attack of apoplexy and now his son Alexander was on the throne. Pah=
len
rushed into Alexander’s rooms. On hearing of the death of his father,
Alexander sobbed. ‘Where is your oath? You promised not to touch my
father!’ he cried. ‘Enough of crying! They’re going to li=
ft
all of us on their bayonets! Please go out to the people!’ shouted Pa=
hlen.
Alexander, still weeping, went out and began to say something to the effect
that he would rule the state well… The sentries in perplexity were
silent. The soldiers could not act against the Heir-Tsarevich, but they cou=
ld
also not understand what had happened. But the simple Russian people, then =
and
later and even now (!) understood well. To this day (since 1801)
believing people who are being oppressed by the powerful of this world in
Petersburg (and recently also in Leningrad) order pannikhidas for ‘the
murdered Paul’, asking for his intercession. And they receive =
what
they ask for!... “And so th=
e plot
of the Russian nobles against the Emperor they did not like succeeded. Paul=
I
was killed with the clear connivance of his sons. The eldest of them,
Alexander, became the Tsar of Russia. In the first hours and days nobody yet
suspected how all this would influence the destiny of the country in the fu=
ture
and the personal destiny and consciousness of Alexander I himself. All the
plotters had an evil end. Some were removed by Alexander I, others were
punished by the Lord Himself. The main regicide Pahlen was quickly removed =
from
all affairs and sent into exile on his estate. There he for a long time =
went
mad, becoming completely irresponsible. Nicholas Zubov and Bennigsen al=
so
went mad (Zubov began to eat his own excreta). Having falsely accused Paul =
I of
being mentally ill, they themselves became truly mentally ill! God is not
mocked. ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’, He said. The joy of =
the
Russian nobility was not especially long-lived. Alexander I and then Nichol=
as I
were nevertheless sons of their father! Both they and the Emperors w=
ho
followed them no longer allowed the nobility to rule them. Immediately the
Russian nobility understood this, that is, that they no longer had any p=
ower
over the Autocracy, they began to strive for the annihilation of the
Autocracy in Russia altogether, which they succeeded in doing, finally,=
in
February, 1917 – true, to their own destruction!.. Such was the
zig-zag of Russian history, beginning with Catherine I and ending with Nich=
olas
II. “The reign=
of
Emperor Paul Petrovich predetermined the following reigns in the =
most
important thing. As we have seen, this Tsar ‘turned his face̵=
7;
towards the Russian Orthodox Church, strengthened the foundations of the
Autocracy and tried to make it truly of the people. Personally this cost him
his life. But thereby the later foundations were laid for the State =
life
of Russia in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th
centuries: ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality!’ Or, in i=
ts
military expression – ‘For the Faith, the Tsar and the
Fatherland!’”[255] “The proph=
ecy of
the clairvoyant monk Abel was completely fulfilled. He personally foretold =
to
the Emperor Paul: ‘Your reign will be short, and I, the sinner, see y=
our
savage end. On the feast of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem you will receive a
martyric death from unfaithful servants. You will be suffocated in your
bedchamber by evildoers whom you warm on your royal breast… They will
bury you on Holy Saturday… But they, these evildoers, in trying to
justify their great sin of regicide, will proclaim that you are mad, and wi=
ll
blacken your good memory.… But the Russian people with their sensitive
soul will understand and esteem you, and they will bring their sorrows to y=
our
grave, asking for your intercession and the softening of the hears of the
unrighteous and cruel.’ This part of the prophecy of Abel was also
fulfilled. When Paul was killed, for many years the people came to his grav=
e to
pray, and he is considered by many to be an uncanonised saint.”[256] Monk Abel prophe=
sied
the following about Paul’s son and successor, Tsar Alexander I:
“Under him the French will burn down Moscow, but he will take Paris f=
rom
them and will be called the Blessed. But his tsar’s crown will be hea=
vy
for him, and he will change the exploit of service as tsar for the exploit =
of
fasting and prayer, and he will be righteous in God’s eyes.”[257] The reign of Tsar
Alexander can be divided into three phases: a first phase until 1812, when =
he
was strongly influenced by the ideas of the eighteenth-century French
Enlightenment; a second phase from 1812 to about 1822, when the main influe=
nce
on him was a kind of romantic mysticism; and a third phase until his death,=
when
he returned to True Orthodoxy. Tsar Alexander faced, in a particularly acute
form, the problems faced by all the “enlightened despots” of the
eighteenth century – that is, how to relieve the burdens of his people
without destroying the autocratic system that held the whole country togeth=
er.
Like his fellow despots, Alexander was strongly influenced by the ideals of=
the
French revolution and by the masonic ferment that, as we have seen, had
penetrated the nobility of Russia no less than the élites of Western
Europe. So it is not surprising that he should have wavered between the
strictly autocratic views of his mother the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovn=
a,
the Holy Synod and the court historian Nicholas Karamzin, on the one hand, =
and
the liberalism of the Masons that surrounded him, on the other. Only ten days af=
ter
the death of his father, Alexander returned to the Winter Palace one night =
to
find an anonymous letter on his desk, full of liberal, anti-autocratic
sentiments of the kind that Alexander had espoused in his youth. [258]
“Is it possible,” it asked, “to set aside the hope of nat=
ions
in favour of the sheer delight of self-rule?… No! He will at last open
the book of fate which Catherine merely perceived. He will give us immutable
laws. He will establish them for ever by an oath binding him to all his
subjects. To Russia he will say, ‘Here lie the bounds to my autocratic
power and to the power of those who will follow me, unalterable and
everlasting.’” The author turne=
d out
to be a member of the chancery staff, Karazin. “There followed,”
writes Palmer, “an episode which anywhere except Russia would have se=
emed
fantastic. When summoned to the Tsar’s presence, Karazin feared a sev=
ere
rebuke for his presumption. But Alexander was effusively magnanimous. He
embraced Karazin warmly and commended his sense of patriotic duty. Karazin,=
for
his part, knelt in tears at Alexander’s feet, pledging his personal
loyalty. Then the two men talked at length about the problems facing the
Empire, of the need to safeguard the people from acts of arbitrary tyranny =
and
to educate them so that they could assume in time the responsibilities of
government…”[259] Alexander was fu=
rther
hindered in breaking with his liberal past by the guilt he felt at not stop=
ping
his father’s murder, and by the fact that in the early part of his re=
ign
he was still surrounded by many of those Masons who had murdered his father.
The result was a continual increase in the power of Masonry. “The
movement was encouraged,” writes Hartley, “by the rumours, which
cannot be substantiated, that Alexander I became a mason (he certainly visi=
ted
lodges in Russia and Germany)[260]; h=
is
younger brother Constantine certainly was a mason. Regional lodges continue=
d to
flourish and young army officers who accompanied Russian forces through Eur=
ope
in 1813 and 1814 also attended, and were influenced by, lodges in the terri=
tory
through which they passed. The constitutions of secret societies which were
formed by army officers in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, like the Order =
of
the Russian Knights and the Union of Salvation and Welfare, copied some of
their rules and hierarchical organization from masonic lodges. In 1815, the
higher orders of masonry in Russia were subordinated to the Astrea grand
lodge.”[261] In January, 1800=
A.F.
Labzin opened the “Dying Sphinx” lodge in Petersburg. The membe=
rs
of the order were sworn to sacrifice themselves and all they had to the aim=
s of
the lodge, whose existence remained a closely guarded secret. In 1806 Labzi=
n founded
The Messenger of Zion as the vehicle of his ideas. Suppressed at fir=
st
by the Church hierarchy, it was allowed to appear by the synodal
over-procurator Prince Golitsyn in 1817. “The
Messenger of Zion,” writes Walicki, “preached the notion of
‘inner Christianity’ and the need for a moral awakening. It
promised its readers that once they were morally reborn and vitalized by fa=
ith,
they would gain suprarational powers of cognition and be able to penetrate =
the
mysteries of nature, finding in them a key to a superior revelation beyond =
the
reach of the Church. “Labzin=
217;s
religion was thus a nondenominational and antiecclesiastical Christianity.
Men’s hearts, he maintained, had been imbued with belief in Christ on=
the
first day of creation; primitive pagan peoples were therefore closer to true
Christianity than nations that had been baptized but were blinded by the fa=
lse
values of civilization. The official Church was only an assembly of
lower-category Christians, and the Bible a ‘silent mentor who gives s=
ymbolic
indications to the living teacher residing in the heart’. All dogmas,
according to Labzin, were merely human inventions: Jesus had not desired me=
n to
think alike, but only to act justly. His words ‘Come unto Me all ye t=
hat
labor and are heavy laden’ showed that he did not mean to set up any
intermediate hierarchy between the believers and God.”[262] In 1802 A.A.
Zherebtsov opened the “United Friends” lodge in Petersburg. Its=
aim
was “to remove between men the distinctions of races, classes, belief=
s and
views, and to destroy fanaticism and superstition, and annihilate hatred and
war, uniting the whole of humanity through the bonds of love and
knowledge.”[263] Th=
en
there was the society of Count Grabianka, “The People of God”.
“The aim of the society was ‘to announce at the command of God =
the
imminent Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and his glorious reign upon
earth’ and to prepare the humble and faithful souls for the approachi=
ng
Kingdom of God. ‘As in the Rosecrucian lodges,’ writes Sokolska=
ia,
‘in the lodge of Count Grabianka people indulged, besides theosophy, =
in
alchemy and magic. But while asserting that the brothers of the “Gold=
en
Rose Cross” had as their object of study ‘white, Divine
magic’, the leaders of the Rosecrucians accused the followers of Count
Grabianka of indulging in reading books of black magic and consorting with =
evil
spirits. In sorrow at the lack of firmness of these brothers, who had become
enmeshed in a new teaching, the leaders wrote: ‘Those who are known t=
o us
are wavering on their path and do not know what to join. And – God ha=
ve
mercy on them! – they are falling into the hands of evil magicians or=
Illuminati…’”[264] Finally, in 1810=
an Illuminati
lodge, “Polar Star”, was opened by the German Lutheran and
pantheist mystic Professor I.A. Fessler. Fessler included among its adepts =
no
less a person than M.M. Speransky, the Minister of Finance.
“’Speransky,’ writes Professor Shiman, ‘was a
Freemason who accepted the strange thought of using the organization of the
lodge for the reform of the Russian clergy, which was dear to his heart. His
plan consisted in founding a masonic lodge that would have branch-lodges
throughout the Russian State and would accept the most capable clergy as
brothers.
“’Speransky openly hated Orthodoxy. With the help of Fes=
sler
he wanted to begin a war against the Orthodox Church. The Austrian
chargé d’affaires Saint-Julien, wrote in a report to his
government on the fall of Speransky that the higher clergy, shocked by the
protection he gave to Fessler, whom he had sent for from Germany, and who h=
ad
the rashness to express Deist, antichristian views, were strongly instrumen=
tal
in his fall (letter of April 1, 1812). However, our ‘liberators’
were in raptures with Speransky’s activities….’”[265] This Masonic fer=
ment
was not without its effect on the conduct of government. Thus within a few
weeks of ascending the throne Alexander formed a neglassny komitet
(secret committee) composed of three or four people of liberal views, who w=
ith
the emperor plotted the transformation of Russia on liberal lines. “On June 2=
4,
1801,” writes V.F. Ivanov, “the secret committee opened its
proceedings. Alexander called it, on the model of the revolution of 1789,
‘the Committee of public safety’, and its opponents from the
conservative camp – ‘the Jacobin gang’. “There beg=
an
criticism of the existing order and of the whole government system, which w=
as
recognised to be ‘ugly’. The firm and definite conclusion was
reached that ‘only a constitution can muzzle the despotic
government’”.[266] However,
Alexander’s coronation in September, 1801, in Moscow, the heart of Old
Russia with its autocratic traditions, pulled him in the opposite direction=
to
the liberal ideas of St. Petersburg. “After being anointed with Holy =
Oil
by the Metropolitan, Alexander swore a solemn oath to preserve the integrit=
y of
the Russian lands and the sacred concept of autocracy; and he was then
permitted, as one blessed by God, to pass through the Royal Doors into the
Sanctuary where the Tsars had, on this one occasion in their lives, the
privilege of administering to themselves the Holy Sacrament. But Alexander =
felt
unworthy to exercise the priestly office in this way; and, as [Metropolitan]
Platon offered him the chalice, he knelt to receive communion as a member of
the laity. Although only the higher clergy and their acolytes witnessed this
gesture of humility, it was soon known in the city at large and created a d=
eep
impression of the new Tsar’s sense of spiritual discipline.”[267] St. Petersburg a=
nd
Moscow, liberal “ecumenism” and Orthodoxy autocracy, the True
Church of Orthodoxy and the false “inner church” of Masonry,
divided Alexander’s heart between them, making his reign a crossroads=
in
Russian history. Alexander,
Napoleon and Speransky Alexander was fi=
nally
forced to make his choice for Orthodoxy by the appearance on the frontiers =
of
Russia of that supreme representative of the despotic essence of liberalism
– Napoleon. Tsar Paul had be=
en
murdered with the connivance of the British. Knowing this, Alexander “=
;did
not trust the British…, and much that Consul Bonaparte was achieving =
in
France appealed to his own political instincts. Provided Napoleon had no
territorial ambitions in the Balkans or the eastern Mediterranean, Alexander
could see no reason for a clash of interests between France and Russia. The
Emperor’s ‘young friends’ on the Secret Committee agreed =
in
general with him rather than with [the Anglophile] Panin, and when Alexander
discussed foreign affairs with them during the late summer of 1801, they
received the impression that he favoured settling differences with France a=
s a
preliminary to a policy of passive isolation. As St. Helens wrote to Hawksb=
ury
shortly before Alexander’s departure for Moscow, ‘The members of
the Emperor’s Council, with whom he is particularly connected…
been… zealous in promoting the intended peace with France, it being t=
heir
professed System to endeavour to disengage the Emperor from all foreign
Concerns… and induce him to direct his principal attention to the aff=
airs
of the Interior.’”[268] However, the inf=
luence
of Napoleon on Alexander began to wane after the Russian Emperor’s
meeting with the Prussian king Frederick William and his consort Queen Loui=
se
in June, 1802. The closeness of the two monarchs threatened to undermine the
Tsar’s policy of splendid isolation from the affairs of Europe, and
alarmed his foreign minister Kochubey, as well as annoying the French. But
isolation was no longer a practical policy as Napoleon continued to encroac=
h on
the rights of the German principalities, and so Alexander replaced his fore=
ign
minister and, in May, 1803, summoned General Arakcheev to strengthen the
Russian army in preparation for possible conflicts in the future… In 1804 the Duc =
d’Enghien
was kidnapped in Baden by French agents, put on trial and executed as a
traitor. “Alexander was enraged by the crime. The Duc d’Enghien=
was
a member of the French royal house. By conniving at his kidnapping and
execution the First Consul became, in Alexander’s eyes, a regicide. N=
or
was this the only cause of the Tsar’s indignation. He regarded the
abduction of the Duke from Baden as a particular insult to Russia, for Napo=
leon
had been repeatedly reminded that Alexander expected the French authorities=
to
respect the lands of his wife’s family. His response was swift and
dramatic. A meeting of the Council of State was convened in mid-April at wh=
ich
it was resolved, with only one dissentient voice, to break off all diplomat=
ic
contact with France. The Russian Court went into official mourning and a so=
lemn
note of protest was despatched to Paris. “But the F=
rench
paid little regard to Russian susceptibilities. Napoleon interpreted
Alexander’s complaint as unjustified interference with the domestic a=
ffairs
and internal security of France. He entrusted the reply to Talleyrand, his
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a bland statement appeared in the official=
Moniteur:
‘If, when England prepared the assassination of Paul I, the Russian
Government had discovered that the organizers of the plot were no more than=
a
league away from the frontier, would it not have seized them at once?’=
; No
allusion could have been better calculated to wound the Tsar than this
deliberate reference to the circumstances of his own accession. It was a
rhetorical question which he found hard to forgive or forget. A month later
news came from Paris that the First Consul had accepted from the French Sen=
ate
the title of Emperor. Now, to all his other transgressions, Napoleon had ad=
ded
contempt for the dynastic principle. Resolutely the successor of Peter the
Great refused to acknowledge the newest of empires.”[269] Alexander now set
about forming a defensive alliance with Austria and Prussia against France
(there were extensive negotiations with Britain, too, but no final agreement
was reached). The Tsar and his new foreign minister, the Pole Czartoryski,
added an interesting ideological element to the alliance. “No attempt
would be made to impose discredited regimes from the past on lands liberated
from French military rule. The French themselves were to be told that the
Coalition was fighting, not against their natural rights, but against a
government which was ‘no less a tyranny for France than the rest of
Europe’. The new map of the continent must rest on principles of just=
ice:
frontiers would be so drawn that they coincided with natural geographical
boundaries, provided outlets for industries, and associated in one political
unit ‘homogeneous peoples able to agree among themselves’.̶=
1;[270] Appealing to peo=
ples
over the heads of their rulers, and declaring that states should be made up=
of
homogeneous ethnic units were, of course, innovative steps, derived from the
French revolution, which presented considerable dangers for multi-ethnic
empires such as the Russian and the Austrian. Similarly new and dangerous w=
as
the idea that the nation was defined by blood alone. None of these ideologi=
cal
innovations appealed to the other nations, and the Coalition (including
Britain) that was eventually patched up in the summer of 1805 was motivated
more by Napoleon’s further advances in Italy than by a common ideolog=
y. However, althoug=
h the
British defeated Napoleon at sea at Trafalgar, it was a different story on
land. At Austerlitz the Allies lost between 25,000 and 30,000 men killed,
wounded or captured. And this was only the beginning. In 1806 Napoleon rout=
ed
the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt, and in 1807, after an indecisive confl=
ict
at Eylau, he defeated the Russians at Friedstadt. Almost the whole of Europ=
e up
to the borders of the Russian empire was in French hands… Two religious ev=
ents
of the year 1806 gave a deeper and darker hue to the political and military
conflict. In France Napoleon re-established the Jewish Sanhedrin, which then
proclaimed him the Messiah. Partly in response to this, the Holy Synod of t=
he
Russian Church called Napoleon the antichrist, declaring that he was
threatening “to shake the Orthodox Greco-Russian Church, and is tryin=
g by
a diabolic invasion to draw the Orthodox into temptation and
destruction”. It said that during the revolution Napoleon had bowed d=
own
to idols, to human creatures and whores. Finally, ‘to the greater
disgrace of the Church of Christ he has thought up the idea of restoring the
Sanhedrin, declaring himself the Messiah, gathering together the Jews and
leading them to the final uprooting of all Christian faith”.[271] In view of this
unprecedented anathema, and the solemn pledges he had made to the King of
Prussia, it would have seemed unthinkable for Alexander to enter into allia=
nce
with Napoleon at this time. And yet this is precisely what he did at the fa=
mous
treaty of Tilsit, on the river Niemen, in July, 1807. It came as a terrible
shock to many that he should invite Napoleon to the meeting, saying:
“Alliance between France and Russia has always been a particular wish=
of
mine and I am convinced that this alone can guarantee the welfare and peace=
of
the world”. Queen Louise of Prussia, who was very close to Alexander,=
wrote
to him: “You have cruelly deceived me”. And it is hard not to a=
gree
with her since, with Alexander’s acquiescence, Napoleon took most of =
the
Prussian lands and imposed a heavy indemnity on the Prussians, while Alexan=
der
took a part of what had been Prussian territory in Poland, the province of
Bialystok. The only concession Alexander was able to wring from the Corsican
was that King Frederick should be restored to the heart of his greatly redu=
ced
kingdom “from consideration of the wishes of His Majesty the Emperor =
of
All the Russias”. Alexander Solzhe=
nitsyn
has argued that the peace of Tilsit was in Russia’s interests and sho=
uld
have been maintained, since it would have averted the war of 1812 and the h=
uge
loss of life that involved. And he points to little-known facts, such as the
burning alive in the fire of Moscow of 15,000 Russian soldiers who were
recovering from wounds suffered at Borodino in the military hospitals of the
city.[272]
However, he fails to take into account the long-term destructive power of t=
he
ideology of the French revolution, of which Napoleon was the carrier. If
Napoleon had not invaded Russia in 1812, and been defeated there, that ideo=
logy
would have been firmly established throughout Europe up to the borders of
Russia, and would have had an intensified influence inside Russia. As it wa=
s,
the defeat of Napoleon gave the counter-revolution a chance to halt, if not
finally stamp out, the virus of revolution. “As the da=
ys
went by with no clear news from Tilsit, the cities of the Empire were again
filled with alarming rumours, as they had been after Austerlitz: was Holy
Russia to be sold to the Antichrist? For, whatever the fashion on the Nieme=
n,
in St. Petersburg and Moscow the Church still thundered on Sundays against
Bonaparte, that ‘worshipper of idols and whores’. The Holy Synod
was unaccustomed to diplomatic revolution…”[273] Metropolitan Pla=
ton of
Moscow wrote to the Tsar warning him not to trust Napoleon, whose ultimate =
aim
was to subjugate the whole of Europe.[274] In
other letters, Platon compared Napoleon to Goliath and to “the Pharao=
h,
who will founder will all his hosts, just as the other did in the Red
Sea”.[275]
Of course, in vi=
ew of
his crushing military defeats, Alexander was in a weak position at Tilsit.
Nevertheless, if he could not defeat his enemy, he did not have to enter in=
to
alliance with him or legitimise his conquests, especially since Napoleon did
not (at that time) plan to invade Russia. To explain Alexander’s
behaviour, which went against the Church, his Allies and most of public opi=
nion
at home, it is not sufficient to point to the liberal ideas of his youth,
although those undoubtedly played a part. It is necessary to point also to a
personal factor, the romantically seductive powers of that truly
antichristian figure, Napoleon Bonaparte. As we have seen in the last chapt=
er,
Napoleon had seduced a whole generation of young people in Europe and Ameri=
ca;
so it is hardly surprising that the Tsar should also have come under his sp=
ell.
As Tsaritsa Eliz=
abeth
perceptively wrote to her mother: “You know, Mamma, this man [Napoleo=
n]
seems to me like an irresistible seducer who by temptation or force succeed=
s in
stealing the hearts of his victims. Russia, the most virtuous of them, has
defended herself for a long time; but she has ended up no better than the
others. And, in the person of her Emperor [Alexander], she has yielded as m=
uch
to charm as to force. He feels a secret attraction to his enticer which is
apparent in all he does. I should indeed like to know what magic it is that=
he
[Napoleon] employs to change people’s opinions so suddenly and so
completely…”[276] In any case,
“the peace of Tilsit,” writes Ivanov, ”did not bring
pacification. A year after Tilsit a meeting took place at Erfurt between
Napoleon and Alexander, to which Alexander brought Speransky. At this last
meeting Napoleon made a huge impression and convinced him of the need of
reforming Russia on the model of France. “The histo=
rian
Professor Shiman in his work, Alexander I, writes: “’And so he (Alexander)=
took
with him to Erfurt the most capable of his officials, the privy councillor
Michael Mikhailovich Speransky, and put him in direct contact with Napoleon,
who did not miss the opportunity to discuss with him in detailed conversati=
ons
various questions of administration. The result of these conversations was a
whole series of outstanding projects of reform, of which the most important=
was
the project of a constitution for Russia.’[277] “Alexander
returned to Petersburg enchanted with Napoleon, while his State-Secretary
Speransky was enchanted both with Napoleon and with everything French. “The plan =
for a
transformation of the State was created by Speransky with amazing speed, an=
d in
October, 1809 the whole plan was on Alexander’s desk. This plan refle=
cted
the dominant ideas of the time, which were close to what is usually called
‘the principles of 1789’. “1) The so=
urce
of power is the State, the country. “2) Only t=
hat
phenomenon which expresses the will of the people can be considered lawful.=
“3) If the
government ceases to carry out the conditions on which it was summoned to
power, its acts lose legality. The centralised administration of
Napoleon’s empire influenced Alexander’s ideas about how he sho=
uld
reform his own administration. “4) So as =
to
protect the country from arbitrariness, and put a bound to absolute power, =
it
is necessary that it and its organs – the government institutions =
211;
should be led in their acts by basic laws, unalterable decrees, which exact=
ly
define the desires and needs of the people. “5) As a
conclusion from what has been said: the basic laws must be the work and
creation of the nation itself. “Proceedin=
g from
the proposition expressed by Montesquieu that ‘three powers move and =
rule
the state: the legislative power, the executive power and the judicial
power’, Speransky constructed the whole of his plan on the principle =
of
the division of powers – the legislative, the executive and the judic=
ial.
Another masonic truth was introduced, that the executive power in the hands=
of
the ministers must be subject to the legislative, which was concentrated in=
the
State Duma. “The plot
proceeded, led by Speransky, who was supported by Napoleon. “After 1809
stubborn rumours circulated in society that Speransky and Count N.P. Rumyan=
tsev
were more attached to the interests of France than of Russia. “Karamzin =
[the
historian] in his notes and conversations tried to convince Alexander to st=
op
the carrying out of Speransky’s reforms, which were useless and would
bring only harm to the motherland. “Joseph de
Maistre saw in the person of Speransky a most harmful revolutionary, who was
undermining the foundations of all state principles and was striving by all
means to discredit the power of the Tsar. “For two y=
ears
his Majesty refused to believe these rumours and warnings. Towards the
beginning of 1812 the enemies of Speransky in the persons of Arakcheev,
Shishkov, Armfeldt and Great Princess Catherine Pavlovna convinced his Maje=
sty
of the correctness of the general conviction of Speransky’s treachery=
. “The follo=
wing
accusations were brought against Speransky: the incitement of the masses of=
the
people through taxes, the destruction of the finances and unfavourable comm=
ents
about the government. “A whole p=
lot to
keep Napoleon informed was also uncovered. Speransky had been entrusted with
conducting a correspondence with Nesselrod, in which the main French actors
were indicated under pseudonyms. But Speransky did not limit himself to giv=
ing
this information: on his own, without authorisation from above, he demanded
that all secret papers and reports from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sho=
uld
be handed over to him. Several officials were found who without objections
carried out his desire…. “Then from=
many
honourable people there came warnings about the traitrous activities of
Speransky. “At the
beginning of 1812 the Swedish hereditary prince Bernadotte, who was in
opposition to Napoleon, informed Petersburg that ‘the sacred person of
the Emperor is in danger’ and that Napoleon was ready with the help o=
f a
big bribe to establish his influence in Russia again. “A letter =
was
intercepted in which Speransky told a friend about the departure of his Maj=
esty
with the aim of inspecting the fortifications that had been raised on the
western border, and he used the expression ‘our Boban’. ‘=
Our
Boban’ was a humorous nickname inspired by Voltaire’s story,
‘White Bull’. “Speransky=
was
completely justly accused of belonging to the most harmful sect of Masonry,=
the
Illuminati. Moreover, it was pointed out that Speransky was not only=
a
member of it, but was ‘the regent of the Illuminati’.
“Speransky’s relations with the Martinists and Illumi=
nati
were reported by Count Rastopchin, who in his ‘Note on the
Martinists’, presented in 1811 to Great Princess Catherine Pavlovna, =
said
that ‘they (the Martinists) were all more or less devoted to Speransk=
y,
who, without belonging in his heart to any sect, or perhaps any religion, w=
as
using their services to direct affairs and keep them dependent on
himself.’ “Finally, =
in the
note of Colonel Polev, found in Alexander I’s study after his death, =
the
names of Speransky, Fessler, Magnitsky, Zlobin and others were mentioned as
being members of the Illuminati lodge… “On March =
11,
1812 Sangley was summoned to his Majesty, who informed him that Speransky
‘had the boldness to describe all Napoleon’s military talents a=
nd
advised him to convene the State Duma and ask it to conduct the war while he
absented himself’. ‘Who am I then? Nothing?’, continued h=
is
Majesty. ‘From this I see that he is undermining the autocracy, which=
I
am obliged to transfer whole to my heirs.’ “On March =
16
Professor Parrot of Derpt university was summoned to the Winter Palace.
‘The Emperor,’ he wrote in a later letter to Emperor Nicholas I,
‘angrily described to me the ingratitude of Speransky, whom I had nev=
er
seen, expressing himself with feeling that drew tears from him. Having
expounded the proof of his treachery that had been presented to him, he sai=
d to
me: ‘I have decided to shoot him tomorrow, and have invited you here
because I wish to know your opinion on this.’ “Unfortuna=
tely,
his Majesty did not carry out his decision: Speransky had too many friends =
and
protectors. They saved him, but for his betrayal he was exiled to Nizhni
Novgorod, and then – in view of the fact that the Nizhni Novgorod
nobility were stirred up against him – to Perm…. At a patriotic
banquet in the house of the Provincial Governor Prince Gruzinsky in Nizhni
Novgorod, the nobles’ patriotism almost cost Speransky his life.
‘Hang him, execute him, burn Speransky on the pyre’ suggested t=
he
Nizhni Novgorod nobles. “Through t=
he
efforts of his friends, Speransky was returned from exile and continued his
treachery against his kind Tsar. He took part in the organisation of the
uprising of the Decembrists, who after the coup appointed him first candida=
te
for the provisional government.”[278] 1812 However, it was Napoleon’s in=
vasion
rather than any internal factors that swung the scales in favour of the sta=
tus
quo, thereby paradoxically saving Russia from a 1789-style revolution. Napo=
leon
decided on this fatal step after a gradual cooling in relations between the=
two
countries, ending with Alexander’s withdrawal, in December, 1810, from
the economically disastrous Continental System that Napoleon had established
against England. By May, Tsar Alexander was showing a much firmer, and more
realistic, attitude to the political and military situation: “Should =
the
Emperor Napoleon make war on me, it is possible, even probable, that we sha=
ll
be defeated. But this will not give him peace… We shall enter into no
compromise agreements; we have plenty of open spaces in our rear, and we sh=
all
preserve a well-organized army… I shall not be the first to draw my
sword, but I shall be the last to sheathe it… I should sooner retire =
to
Kamchatka than yield provinces or put my signature to a treaty in my conque=
red
capital which was no more than a truce…”[279] The invasion also
probably saved Russia from a union with Catholicism, which by now had made =
its
Concordat with Napoleon and was acting, very probably, on Napoleon’s
orders. For in 1810 Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, as K.A. Papmehl writes,
“became the recipient of ecumenical overtures by the French senator
Grégoire (formerly Bishop of Blois), presumably on Napoleon’s
initiative. In a letter dated in Paris in May of that year, Grégoire=
referred
to the discussions held in 1717, at the Sorbonne, between Peter I and some
French bishops, with a view of exploring the prospects of re-unification. P=
eter
apparently passed the matter on to the synod of Russian bishops who, in the=
ir
turn, indicated that they could not commit themselves on a matter of such
importance without consulting the Eastern Patriarchs. Nothing had been heard
from the Russian side since then. Grégoire nevertheless assumed that=
the
consultation must have taken place and asked for copies of the Patriarchs&#=
8217;
written opinions. He concluded his letter by assuring Platon that he was ho=
ping
and praying for reunification of the Churches… “Platon pa=
ssed
the letter to the Synod in St. Petersburg. In 1811 [it] replied to
Grégoire, with Emperor Alexander’s approval, to the effect tha=
t a
search of Russian archives failed to reveal any of the relevant documents. =
The
idea of a union, Platon added, was, in any case ‘contrary to the mood=
of
the Russian people’ who were deeply attached to their faith and conce=
rned
with its preservation in a pure and unadulterated form.”[280] Only a few years
before, at Tilsit in 1807, the Tsar had said to Napoleon: “In Russia =
I am
both Emperor and Pope – it’s much more convenient.”[281] But
this was not true: if Napoleon was effectively both Emperor and Pope in Fra=
nce,
this could never be said of the tsars in Russia, damaged though the Orthodox
symphony of powers had been by a century of absolutism and anti-Orthodox
acculturation. And the restraint on Alexander’s power constituted by =
what
remained of that symphony of powers evidently led him to think again about
imitating the West too closely, whether politically or ecclesiastically. That the symphon=
y of
powers was still intact was witnessed at the consecration of the Kazan
cathedral in St. Petersburg on September 27, 1811, the tenth anniversary of
Alexander’s coronation. “There was an ‘immense crowd̵=
7;
of worshippes and onlookers. Not for many years had the people of St.
Petersburg witnessed so solemn a ceremony symbolizing the inter-dependence =
of
Church and State, for this essential bond of Tsardom was customarily emphas=
ized
in Moscow rather than in the newer capital. To some it seemed, both at the =
time
and later, that the act of consecration served Alexander as a moment of
re-dedication and renewal, linking the pledges he had given at his crowning=
in
Moscow with the mounting challenge from across the frontier. For the rest of
the century, the Kazan Cathedral remained associated in people’s minds
with the high drama of its early years, so that it became in time a shrine =
for
the heroes of the Napoleonic wars.”[282] It was from the =
Kazan
Cathedral that Alexander set out at the start of the campaign, on April 21,
1812. As Tsaritsa Elizabeth wrote to her mother in Baden: “The Emperor
left yesterday at two o’clock, to the accompaniment of cheers and
blessings from an immense crowd of people who were tightly packed from the
Kazan Church to the gate of the city. As these folk had not been hustled in=
to
position by the police and as the cheering was not led by planted agents, he
was – quite rightly – moved deeply by such signs of affection f=
rom
our splendid people!… ‘For God and their Sovereign’ ̵=
1;
that was the cry! They make no distinction between them in their hearts and
scarcely at all in their worship. Woe to him who profanes the one or the ot=
her.
These old-world attitudes are certainly not found more intensively anywhere
than at the extremes of Europe. Forgive me, dear Mamma, for regaling you wi=
th
commonplaces familiar to everyone who has a true knowledge of Russia, but o=
ne
is carried away when speaking of something you love; and you know my passio=
nate
devotion to this country.”[283] A century later,=
at
the beginning of a still greater war against a western enemy, another
German-born Tsaritsa would express almost exactly similar sentiments on see=
ing
her husband and Tsar go to battle… And so
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 acquired a significance that the
other Napoleonic wars in continental Europe did not have: it became a strug=
gle,
not simply between two not-so-different political systems, but between two
radically opposed faiths: the faith in the Revolution and the faith =
in
Orthodoxy. 1812 produced an explosion of Russian patriotism and religious
feeling. More religious feeling than patriotism, which was not immediately
evident in some parts of the population at the beginning of the invasion. F=
or,
as K.N. Leontiev writes: “It was ecclesiastical feeling and obedience=
to
the authorities (the Byzantine influence) that saved us in 1812. It is
well-known that many of our peasants (not all, of course, but those who were
taken unawares by the invasion) found little purely national feeling in
themselves in the first minute. They robbed the landowners’ estates,
rebelled against the nobility, and took money from the French. The clergy, =
the
nobility and the merchants behaved differently. But immediately they saw th=
at
the French were stealing the icons and putting horses in our churches, the
people became harder and everything took a different turn…”[284] God’s evid=
ent
support for the heroic Russian armies, at the head of which was the
“Reigning” icon of the Mother of God[285],
reanimated a fervent pride and belief in Holy Russia. Of particular
significance was the fact that it had been Moscow, the old capital associat=
ed
with Orthodoxy and the Muscovite tsars, rather than the new and westernized
capital of St. Petersburg, which had borne the brunt of the suffering. For =
it
was not so much the indecisive battle of Borodino, a contest in which, acco=
rding
to Napoleon, “the French showed themselves worthy of victory and the
Russians of being invincible”[286], as
the burning of Moscow, which destroyed 80% of dwellings in the city, and
Alexander’s refusal to surrender even after that, which proved the
decisive turning-point, convincing Napoleon that he could not win… The terrible
sufferings of the French on their return march are well-known. There was ev=
en
cannibalism, - a sure sign of apocalyptic times, - as the soldiers of the G=
reat
Army began to put their fellow-soldiers in the stew pots. Out of the vast a=
rmy
that set out for Russia, only 120,000 returned, 35,000 of them French.[287] However, the vic=
tory
of the Orthodox was almost prevented by the intrigues of the Masons. Promin=
ent
among them was the commander-in-chief of the army Kutuzov, who, according to
Sokolskaia, was initiated into Masonry at the “Three Keys” lodg=
e in
Regensburg, and was later received into lodges in Frankfurt, Berlin, Peters=
burg
and Moscow, penetrating into the secrets of the higher degrees.[288] The
Tsar was against Kutuzov’s appointment, but said: “The public
wanted his appointment, I appointed him: as regards myself personally, I wa=
sh
my hands of him.” He was soon prov=
ed
right in his premonition. The Russian position at the battle of Borodino was
poorly prepared by Kutuzov, and he himself took no part in it. The previous
commander-in-chief, Barclay, took the lead and acted heroically. Then he
followed the agreed plan by retreating and evacuating Moscow. But Kutuzov p=
ut
all the blame for this on Barclay. De Maistre, writing to his master, the K=
ing
of Sardinia, was horrified: “There are few crimes to compare with ope=
nly
attributing all the horror and destruction of Moscow to General Barclay, wh=
o is
not Russian and has nobody to defend him.”[289] In Moscow, the
patriotic Count Rastopchin, well aware of the pro-Napoleonic sentiments of =
the
nobility, had them evacuated, while Kutuzov slept. As the Martinist Runich
said: “Rastopchin, acting through fear, threw the nobility, the merch=
ants
and the non-gentry intellectuals out of Moscow in order that they should not
give in to the enticements and influence of Napoleon’s tactics. He
stirred up the hatred of the people by the horrors [of the fire, which was =
lit
on Rastopchin’s orders] that he ascribed to the foreigners, whom he
mocked at the same time. He saved Russia from the yoke of Napoleon.”[290] “The fire =
of
Moscow started the people’s war. Napoleon’s situation deteriora=
ted
from day to day. His army was demoralised. The hungry French soldiers wande=
red
round the outskirts of Moscow searching for bread and provisions. Lootings =
and
murders began. Discipline in the army declined sharply. Napoleon was faced =
with
a threatening dilemma: either peace, or destruction. “Peace
negotiations began. On September 23 at Tarutino camp Kutuzov met
Napoleon’s truce-envoy Lauriston. Kutuzov willingly accepted this
suggestion and decided to keep the meeting a complete secret. He told Lauri=
ston
to meet him outside the camp, beyond the line of our advance posts, on the =
road
to Moscow. Everything was to be done in private and the profect for a truce=
was
to be put forward very quickly. This plan for a secret agreement between
Napoleon and the masonic commander-in-chief fell through. Some Russian gene=
rals
and especially the English agent attached to the Russian army, [General]
Wilson, protested against the unofficial secret negotiations with Napoleon.=
On
September 23 Wilson made a scene in front of Kutuzov; he came to him as the
representative of the general staff and army generals and declared that the
army would refuse to obey him. Wilson was supported by the Duke of Wurtembu=
rg,
the Emperor’s uncle, his son-in-law the Duke of Oldenburg and Prince
Volkonsky, general-adjutant, who had arrived not long before with a report =
from
Petersburg. Kutuzov gave way, and the meeting with Lauriston took place in =
the
camp headquarters. “Kutuzov&#=
8217;s
failure in securing peace did not stop him from giving fraternal help to
Napoleon in the future. “After ins=
istent
urgings from those close to him and at the insistence of his Majesty, Kutuz=
ov
agreed to attack near Tarutino. “The battl=
e of
Tarutino revealed the open betrayal of the commander-in-chief. “’Wh=
en in
the end the third and fourth corps came out of the wood and the cavalry of =
the
main army was drawn up for the attack, the French began a general retreat. =
When
the French retreat was already an accomplished fact and the French columns =
were
already beyond Chernishina, Bennigsen moved his armies forward. “The main =
forces
at the moment of the French retreat had been drawn up for battle. In spite =
of
this, and the persuasions of Ermolov and Miloradovich, Kutuzov decisively
refused to move the armies forward, and only a part of the light cavalry wa=
s set
aside for pursuing the enemy, the rest of the army returned to the Tarutino
camp. “Bennigsen=
was
so enraged by the actions of the field-marshal that after the battle he did=
not
even consider it necessary to display military etiquette in front of him an=
d,
on receiving his congratulations on the victory, did not even get off his
horse. “In private
conversations he accused Kutuzov not only of not supporting him with the ma=
in
army for personal reasons, but also of deliberately holding back Osterman&#=
8217;s
corps. “For many =
this
story will seem monstrous; but from the Masonic point of view it was necess=
ary:
the Mason Kutuzov was only carrying out his obligations in relation to his
brother (Murat), who had been beaten and fallen into misfortune. =
;
“In pursui=
ng the
retreating army of Napoleon Kutuzov did not have enough strength or
decisiveness to finish once and for all with the disordered French army. Du=
ring
the retreat Kutuzov clearly displayed criminal slowness. “’The
behaviour of the field-marshall drives me mad,’ wrote the English age=
nt
General Wilson about this.” For “the Masonic oath was always he=
ld
to be higher than the military oath.”[291] The
Aftermath of Victory The victory over
Napoleon elicited an explosion of religious feeling, not least in the Tsar
himself, who said: “The burning of Moscow enlightened my soul, and the
judgement of God on the icy fields filled my heart with a warmth of faith s=
uch
as I had not felt before. Then I came to know God as He is depicted in the =
Holy
Scriptures. I am obliged to the redemption of Europe from destruction for my
own redemption”. All the crosses and medallions minted in memory of 1=
812,
he said, were to bear the inscription: “Not to us, not to us, but to =
Thy
name give the glory”.[292] God was teaching=
the
Russians a most important lesson: that those western, and especially French,
influences which had so inundated Russia in the century up to 1812, were
unequivocally evil and threatened to destroy all that was good in Russia. As
Bishop Theophan the Recluse wrote generations later: “We are attracte=
d by
enlightened Europe… Yes, there for the first time the pagan abominati=
ons
that had been driven out of the world were restored; then they passed and a=
re
passing to us, too. Inhaling into ourselves these poisonous fumes, we whirl
around like madmen, not remembering who we are. But let us recall 1812: Why=
did
the French come to us? God sent them to exterminate that evil which we had
taken over from them. Russia repented at that time, and God had mercy on
her.”[293] Tragically, howe=
ver,
that lesson was only partially and superficially learned. Although the Maso=
nic
plans to overthrow both Church and State had been foiled, both Masonry and
other unhealthy religious influences continued to flourish. And discontent =
with
the existing order was evident in both the upper and the lower classes. Thus the question
arose of the emancipation of the peasants, who had played such a great part=
in
the victory, voluntarily destroying their own homes and crops in order to d=
eny
them to the French. They hoped for more in return than they actually receiv=
ed,
especially those who had marched in the armies that marched to Paris,
observing, as Zamoyski notes, “that peasants in France and Germany li=
ved
in proper houses and ate well, and that even Prussian soldiers were treated=
in
more human fashion than they were themselves”[294]. <=
o:p> “There was=
great
bitterness,” writes Hosking, “among peasants who returned from
their militia service to find that there was no emancipation. Alexander, in=
his
manifesto of 30 August 1814, thanking and rewarding all his subjects for th=
eir
heroic deeds, said of the peasants simply that they would ‘receive th=
eir
reward from God’…. Some nobles tried to persuade the authorities
not to allow them back, but to leave them in the regular army as ordinary
soldiers. The poet Gavriil Derzhavin was informed by his returnees that they
had been ‘temporarily released’ and were now state peasants and=
not
obliged to serve him. Rumours circulated that Alexander had intended to free
them all, but had been invited to a special meeting of indignant nobles at
night in the Senate, from which he had allegedly been rescued, pleading for=
his
life, by his brother Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich…”[295] Here we have the=
theme,
familiar throughout later Russian history, of the people laying the blame f=
or
their woes, not on the tsar, but on the nobles. Some peasants may have want=
ed
emancipation and a share in the nobles’ wealth. But they wanted it However, if the =
masses
of the people were still Orthodox and loyal to the Tsar, this was becoming =
more
and more difficult to say of the nobility. We have seen the extent to which
Masonry penetrated the bureaucracy in the early part of Alexander’s
reign. Unfortunately, the triumphant progress of the Russian army into the
heart of Masonry, Paris, did not destroy this influence, but only served to
strengthen it. For, as Zamoyski writes, “if nobles at home wanted to =
keep
their serfs, the nobles who served as officers in the armies that occupied
Paris were exposed to other, liberal influences. They had been brought up
speaking French and reading the same literature as educated people in other
countries. They could converse effortlessly with German and English allies =
as
well as with French prisoners and civilians. Ostensibly, they were just like
any of the Frenchmen, Britons and Germans they met, yet at every step they =
were
made aware of profound differences. The experience left them with a sense of
being somehow outside, almost unfit for participation in European civilisat=
ion.
And that feeling would have dire consequences…”[296] Not only Masonry=
and
liberalism, but all kinds of pseudo-religious mysticism flooded into Russia
from the West. There was, writes N. Elagin, “a veritable inundation of
‘mystical’ and pseudo-Christian ideas… together with the
‘enlightened’ philosophy that had produced the French Revolutio=
n.
Masonic lodges and other secret societies abounded; books containing the
Gnostic and millenarian fantasies of Jacob Boehme, Jung-Stilling,
Eckhartshausen and other Western ‘mystics’ were freely translat=
ed
into Russian and printed for distribution in all the major cities of the re=
alm;
‘ecumenical’ salons spread a vague teaching of an ‘inner
Christianity’ to the highest levels of Russian society; the press
censorship was under the direction of the powerful Minister of Spiritual
Affairs, Count Golitsyn, who patronized every ‘mystical’ current
and stifled the voice of traditional Orthodoxy by his dominance of the Holy
Synod as Procurator; the Tsar Alexander himself, fresh from his victory over
Napoleon and the formation of a vaguely religious ‘Holy Alliance̵=
7;
of Western powers, favored the new religious currents and consulted with
‘prophetesses’ and other religious enthusiasts; and the bishops=
and
other clergy who saw what was going on were reduced to helpless silence in =
the
face of the prevailing current of the times and the Government’s supp=
ort
of it, which promised exile and disgrace for anyone who opposed it. Many ev=
en
of those who regarded themselves as sincere Orthodox Christians were swept =
up
in the spiritual ‘enthusiasm’ of the times, and, trusting their
religious feelings more than the Church’s authority and tradition, we=
re
developing a new spirituality, foreign to Orthodoxy, in the midst of the Ch=
urch
itself. Thus, one lady of high birth, Ekaterina P. Tatarinova, claimed to h=
ave
received the gift of ‘prophecy’ on the very day she was received
into the Orthodox Church (from Protestantism), and subsequently she occupied
the position of a ‘charismatic’ leader of religious meetings wh=
ich
included the singing of Masonic and sectarian hymns (while holding hands in=
a
circle), a peculiar kind of dancing and spinning when the ‘Holy
Spirit’ would come upon them, and actual ‘prophecy’ ̵=
1;
sometimes for hours at a time. The members of such groups fancied that they
drew closer to the traditions of Orthodoxy by such meetings, which they
regarded as a kind of restoration of the New Testament Church for
‘inward’ believers, the ‘Brotherhood in Christ’, as
opposed to the ‘outward’ Christians who were satisfied with the
Divine services of the Orthodox Church… The revival of the perennial
‘charismatic’ temptation in the Church, together with a vague
‘revolutionary’ spirit imported from the West, presented a dang=
er
not merely to the preservation of true Christianity in Russia, but to the v=
ery
survival of the whole order of Church and State…”[297] V.N. Zhmakin wri=
tes:
“From 1812 there began with us in Russia a time of the domination of
extreme mysticism and pietism… The Emperor Alexander became a devotee=
of
many people simultaneously, from whatever quarter they declared their relig=
ious
enthusiasm… He protected the preachers of western mysticism, the Cath=
olic
paters… Among the first of his friends and counsellors was Prince A.N.
Golitsyn, who was ober-procurator of the Synod from 1803… He had the
right to affirm the Synodal decisions… Prince Golitsyn was the comple=
te
master of the Russian Orthodox Church in the reign of Alexander I… Ha=
ving
received no serious religious education, like the majority of aristocrats of
that time, he was a complete babe in religious matters and almost an ignora=
mus
in Orthodoxy… Golitsyn, who understood Orthodoxy poorly, took his
understanding of it only from its external manifestations… His mystic=
al
imagination inclined in favour of secrecy, fancifulness, originality…=
He
became simultaneously the devotee of all the representatives of contemporary
mysticism, such as Mrs. Krunder, the society of Quakers, Jung Schtilling, t=
he
pastors… etc. Moreover, he became the pitiful plaything of all the
contemporary sectarians, all the religious utopians, the representatives of=
all
the religious theories, beginning with the Masons and ending with the ̷=
0;
eunuch Selivanov and the half-mad Tatarinova. In truth, Prince Golitsyn at =
the
same time protected the mystics and the pietists, and gave access into Russ=
ia
to the English missionaries, and presented a broad field of activity to the
Jesuits, who, thanks to the protection of the Minister of Religious Affairs,
sowed a large part of Russia with their missions… He himself personal=
ly
took part in the prayer-meetings of the Quakers and waited, together with t=
hem,
for the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, he himself took part in the relig=
ious
gatherings of Tatarinova, which were orgies reminiscent of the Shamans and
khysts…. Thanks to Prince Golitsyn, mystical literature received all
rights of citizenship in Russia – works shot through with mystical
ravings were distributed en masse… By the direct order of Prince Goli=
tsyn
all the more significant mystical works and translations were distributed to
all the dioceses to the diocesan bishops. In some dioceses two thousand cop=
ies
of one and the same work were sent to some dioceses… Prince
Golitsyn… acted… in the name of the Holy Synod… and in th=
is
way contradicted himself;… the Synod as it were in its own name
distributed works which actually went right against Orthodoxy…. He
strictly persecuted the appearance of such works as were negatively oriented
towards mysticism… Many of the simple people, on reading the mystical
works that came into their hands, … were confused and perplexed.̶=
1;[298] Something of the
atmosphere of St. Petersburg at that time can be gathered from the
recollections of the future Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov), when he went t=
here
for service in the newly reformed ecclesiastical schools in 1809. “The
Synod greeted him with the advice to read ‘Swedenborg’s Mira=
cles’
and learn French. He was taken to court to view the fireworks and attend a
masquerade party in order to meet Prince Golitsyn…, quite literally
‘amidst the noise of a ball’… This was Philaret’s f=
irst
masquerade ball, and he had never before seen a domino. ‘At the time I
was an object of amusement in the Synod,’ Philaret recalled, ‘a=
nd I
have remained a fool’.”[299] As Alexander pur=
sued
the remnants of Napoleon’s Great Army into Poland in the bitterly cold
winter of 1812-13, he was “in a state bordering on religious ecstasy.
More and more he turned to the eleventh chapter of the Book of Daniel with =
the
apocalyptic vision of how the all-conquering King of the South is cast down=
by
the King of the North. It seemed to him as if the prophecies, which had
sustained him during the dark days of autumn and early winter, were now to =
be
fulfilled: Easter this year would come with a new spiritual significance of=
hope
for all Europe. ‘Placing myself firmly in the hands of God I submit
blindly to His will,’ he informed his friend Golitsyn from Radzonow, =
on
the Wrkra. ‘My faith is sincere and warm with passion. Every day it g=
rows
firmer and I experience joys I had never know before… It is difficult=
to
express in words the benefits I gain from reading the Scriptures, which
previously I knew only superficially… All my glory I dedicate to the
advancement of the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ’… At Kalisch
(Kalisz) on the border of the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw and Prussia the Tsar
concluded a convention with Frederick William: the agreement provided for a
close military alliance between Russia and Prussia, stipulating the size of
their respective contingents and promising Prussia territory as extensive a=
s in
1806; but the final clauses went beyond the normal language of diplomacy to
echo Alexander’s religious inspiration. ‘Let all Germany join u=
s in
our mission of liberation,’ the Kalisch Treaty said. ‘The hour =
has
come for obligations to be observed with that religious faith, that sacred
inviolability which holds together the power and permanence of
nations.’”[300] Of course, there=
were
difficult battles still to be fought, and alarms to be endured. Not the lea=
st
of them was Napoleon’s escape from Elba, which he had been unwisely g=
iven
(as many others had foreseen, Elba was much too close to the mainland) at t=
he
insistence of the ever-chivalrous Alexander, after which he was only with g=
reat
difficulty finally defeated at Waterloo in June, 1815. Nevertheless, the Ts=
ar
showed great tenacity of purpose, in contrast to his weakness at Tilsit, in
pushing all the way to Paris and the complete overthrow of the
antichrist-emperor, and must take the main credit for finally seeing a legi=
timate
Bourbon king placed on the throne of France. Perhaps the best
measure of his victory was the Orthodox Divine Liturgy celebrated on
Alexander’s namesday, September 12, on seven altars on the Plain of
Vertus, eighty miles east of Paris, in the presence of the Russian army and=
all
the leading political and military leaders of Europe. Neither before nor si=
nce
in the modern history of Europe has there been such a universal witness, by=
all
the leaders of the Great Powers, to the true King of kings and Lord of lord=
s. And if this was =
just a
diplomatic concession on the part of the non-Orthodox powers, it was much m=
ore
than that for Alexander. His truly Orthodox spirit, so puzzling to the other
leaders of Europe, was manifested in a letter he wrote that same evening:
“This day has been the most beautiful in all my life. My heart was fi=
lled
with love for my enemies. In tears at the foot of the Cross, I prayed with
fervour that France might be saved…”[301] A few days later
Alexander presented his fellow sovereigns with a sacred treaty which he urg=
ed
them to sign and publish. The treaty was designed to bind the rulers of Eur=
ope
to a union in virtue, requiring them “to take as their sole guide the
precepts of the Christian religion”. The Tsar insisted on proclaiming=
the
treaty dedicated “to the Holy and Indivisible Trinity” in Paris
because it was the most irreligious of all Europe’s capital cities.[302] Only the King of
Prussia welcomed the idea. The Emperor of Austria was embarrassed; and in
private agreed with his chancellor, Metternich, that Alexander was mad. On =
the
British side, the Duke of Wellington confessed that he could hardly keep a
straight face. He and Castlereagh mocked it in private. Why such irrever=
ence
when all agreed that they had come together to defend religion and legitima=
te
government against the atheist Jacobinism? First, because it was not religi=
on,
but legitimate government, - more precisely, their own positions, - that mo=
st
of the statesmen were really interested in, little understanding that
the foundation of legitimate government is religion. And secondly,
because there had been no agreement in Europe about what “the Christi=
an
religion” was for nearly 800 years… Nevertheless, Ts=
ar
Alexander was now the most powerful man in Europe, and the others could not
afford to reject his project out of hand. So, led by Metternich, they set a=
bout
discreetly editing the treaty of its more mystical elements until it was si=
gned
by the monarchs of Russia, Austria and Prussia (the British and the Turks o=
pted
out, as did the Pope of Rome) on September 26.
[303] “Conformab=
ly to
the word of the Holy Scriptures,” declared the signatories, “the
three contracting Monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and in=
dissoluble
fraternity, and considering each other as fellow countrymen, they will on a=
ll
occasions, and in all places led each other aid and assistance; and regardi=
ng
themselves towards their subjects and armies as fathers of families, they w=
ill
lead them, in the same fraternity with which they are animated to protect
religion, peace and justice.”[304] Th=
ey
pledged themselves to stand together as “members of a single Christian
nation” – a remarkable idea in view of the fact that of the thr=
ee
members of the Alliance, one, Russia, was Orthodox, another, Austria, was
Catholic, and the third, Prussia, was Protestant. Golitsyn wrote a=
bout
the Sacred Alliance in positively chiliastic terms: “This act cannot =
be
recognized as anything other than a preparation for that promised kingdom of
the Lord which will be upon the earth as in the heavens.”[305] And
the future Metropolitan Philaret wrote: “Finally the kingdoms of this
world have begun to belong to our Lord and His Christ”.[306] But if the
Russians’ vision was apocalyptic, that of the Germans was
backward-looking in accordance with that romantic medievalism that was swee=
ping
the Germanic lands. For, as Bamber Gascoigne writes: “The Middle Ages
were the period when Europe had seemed to be a single Christian nation, and=
the
medieval yearnings of the Romanic Movement played a large part in the polit=
ical
dreams of the right. In 1799 Novalis had anticipated the mood in an essay
called Christendom or Europe. He advocated returning to a rather vag=
uely
defined medieval structure of society, in which the virtues were ‘res=
pect
for antiquity, attachment to spiritual institutions, a love for the monumen=
ts
of our ancestors, and the old glorious state families, and the joy of
obedience.’ Of all these merits, the joy of obedience was undoubtedly=
the
most attractive to the Christian rulers signing the Holy Alliance. The only
prince to abstain was the English prince regent, who was advised by Castler=
eagh
that the alliance was ‘a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense̵=
7;
(the strictly utilitarian Jeremy Bentham had an even more pungent phrase for
such matters, ‘nonsense on stilts’). The Christian princes wast=
ed
no time in reviving certain ancient institutions which had been abolished u=
nder
the Enlightenment or by Napoleon. The Index of Prohibited Books and the
Inquisition were restored; and the Jesuits, who for two centuries had been a
symbol of papal influence throughout Europe, were re-established.”[307] Even some renown=
ed
churchmen seem to have been temporarily influenced by the ecumenist spirit =
of
this project.[308]
Fortunately, however, later tsars, while retaining the politics of alliances
with monarchical states against the revolution (Nicholas I even helped the
Sultan of Turkey against the Pasha of Egypt in 1833), did not attach to it =
that
ecumenist religious significance given to it by Tsar Alexander. A dangerous
temptation had been narrowly averted… The
Polish Question One of the most
important issues faced by the Great Powers in 1815 was the settlement of
Poland. As was to be expected, the Poles welcomed Napoleon after he defeated
the Prussians at Jena in 1806, even if his claims to be a liberator were we=
ll
and truly tarnished by then (Polish soldiers had suffered particularly in
helping the French tyrant’s attempts to crush Dominican independence).
But Napoleon was the means, they felt, to their own independence.[309] Th=
ey
were doomed to be disappointed, however. In 1807 Napoleon created the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw, and by 1812 controlled almost all the lands of the former =
Republic
– but did not restore it to full independence. And then the Russian
armies came back… Nevertheless, Polish soldiers faithfully followed
Napoleon both to Elba and to St. Helena, and the cult of Napoleon remained
alive in Polish hearts for a long time. Thus the poet Mickiewicz signed him=
self
“Adam Napoleon Mickiewicz”[310]. <=
o:p> But in fact Tsar
Alexander offered the Poles more than Napoleon had ever given them – =
one
of the most liberal constitutions in Europe, affording the Poles more rights
than even the Russians![311] As
Lebedev writes: “Great was the joy of Emperor Alexander I in connecti=
on
with the fact that in 1815 he succeeded in creating a Polish Kingdom that w=
as
free both from Prussia and from Austria and almost completely – from
Russia! For he gave this Kingdom a Constitution! An unparalleled situation =
was
created. While remaining a part of the Russian Empire, Poland was at the sa=
me
time a state within a state, and distinct from Russia precisely because it =
had
rights and freedoms which did not exist in Russia! But this seemed little to
the proud (and therefore the blind) Poles! They were dreaming of
recreating, then and there, the [Polish State] in that ‘greatnessR=
17;
which, as they thought, it had had before the ‘division of Poland. A
revolutionary ‘patriotic’ movement began in which even the frie=
nd
of Alexander I’s youth, A. Chartoryskij, took part. Like other Polish
‘pans’ [nobles], he looked with haughty coldness on the actions=
of
the Emperor in relation to Poland. The Polish gentry did not value
them…”[312] A complicating f=
actor
in the Polish question was Freemasonry. The Masonic historian Jasper Ridley
writes: “Alexander I’s attitude to Freemasonry in Russia was
affected by the position in Poland. The first Freemasons’ lodge in Po=
land
was formed in 1735; but the Freemasons were immediately attacked by the Jes=
uits
and the Roman Catholic Church, which was influential in Poland, and in 1738
King Augustus II issued a decree suppressing them. His successor, King
Stanislaus Augustus Poniatovsky, was sympathetic to the Freemasons. He allo=
wed
the first Polish Grand Lodge to be formed in 1767, and ten years later he
himself became a Freemason. “The
partition of Poland between Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great and Ma=
ria
Theresa in 1772, was followed by the further partitions of 1793 and 1796, w=
hich
eliminated Poland as a country. It was a black day for the Polish Freemason=
s.
Only Frederick the Great and his successors in Prussia tolerated them; they
were suppressed in Austrian Poland in 1795 and in Russian Poland in 1797. S=
ome
of the leaders of the Polish resistance… were Freemasons; but the most
famous of all the heroes of Polish independence, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, was no=
t a
Freemason, though he was a personal friend of La Fayette. “When Napo=
leon
defeated the Russians at Eylau and Friedland, and established the Grand Duc=
hy
of Warsaw under French protection in 1807, he permitted and encouraged the
Freemasons, and in March 1810 the Grand Orient of Poland was established. A=
fter
the defeat of Napoleon, Alexander I did not ban the Freemasons in that part=
of
Poland which again came under Russia. When he visited Warsaw in November 18=
15
he was entertained at a banquet by the Polish Freemasons, and was made a me=
mber
of the Polish Grand Orient. In 1816 General Alexander Rojnezky became Deputy
Grand Master of the Polish Grand Orient, and he drafted a new constitution =
for
the Freemasons which brought the organization to a considerable extent under
the control of the Russian government. This aroused the resentment of patri=
otic
Poles who did not like the Russians. In 1819 Major Victor Lukacinsky formed=
a
rival masonic organization. It was free from Russian control and only Poles
were admitted. “The devel=
opment
in Poland was probably one of the factors which persuaded Tsar Alexander to
change his attitude towards Freemasonry [and the Polish Kingdom]; though
another was his general shift towards a reactionary [sic] policy whi=
ch
followed the formation of the Holy Alliance against revolution between Russ=
ia,
Austria and Prussia. He asked Lieutenant General Egor Alexandrovich Kushele=
v,
who was a senator and himself a prominent Freemason, to report to him on the
masonic lodges in Russia.
“Kushelev’s report, in June 1821, stated that although t=
rue
Freemasons were loyal subjects and their ideals and activities were
praiseworthy, masonic lodges could be used as a cover for revolutionary
activities, as they had been in the Kingdom of Naples; and the same was
happening in Russia, especially in three of the St. Petersburg lodges. “’Th=
is is
the state, Most Gracious Sovereign, in which Masonic lodges now exist in
Petersburg. Instead of the Spirit of Christian mildness and of true Masonic
rules and meekness, the spirit of self-will, turbulence and real anarchy ac=
ts
through them.’ “Within a =
month
of receiving Kushelev’s report, Alexander I banned the publication of
masonic songs and all other masonic documents. On 1 August 1822 he issued a
decree suppressing the Freemasons throughout Russia. In November he issued a
similar decree banning the Freemasons and all other secret societies in Rus=
sian
Poland. These decrees were re-enacted by his more reactionary brother, Tsar
Nicholas I, when Nicholas succeeded Alexander…”[313] If the Polish pr=
oblem
was difficult to solve, the Jewish problem was even more intractable. The t=
wo
nations had much in common: both were nations without states, distrustful of
each other but united in their craving for national autonomy, both were
motivated by a fiercely anti-Orthodox faith, and both occupied approximately
the same territories in what was now Western Russia, the subjects of that
people, the Russians, whom they had both exploited in the not-so-distant pa=
st.
The future of Europe, and Christian civilization in general, would to a lar=
ge
extent depend on how well Orthodox Russia would succeed in assimilating and
neutralising this breeding-ground of the Revolution… Now for a centur=
y or
so before the French revolution, all the major countries of Europe, with the
partial exception of Britain and her colonies, had been absolutist in their
political structure. In each the monarch supported an official religion whi=
ch
was in decline but still powerful, and in each there were large religious
minorities that were sometimes tolerated and sometimes persecuted – t=
he
Huguenots in France, the Orthodox in Austro-Hungary, the Orthodox and Armen=
ians
in Turkey, the Old Believers and Catholics in Russia, the Orthodox and
Protestants in Poland, the Jews everywhere… The universal
principles proclaimed by the Enlightenment, together with the idea of the
holiness of the Nation proclaimed by the French revolution, led to the
emancipation of the Jews, first in France, and then in most of the countrie=
s of
Europe. The process was slow and accompanied by many reverses and difficult=
ies,
but inexorable. The only great power which firmly and consistently resisted
this trend was Russia…. It was not that =
the
Russians did not want to emancipate their Jewish population if that =
had
been possible without harm to the Christians. The record of the Russian emp=
ire
in giving full rights to natives of various subject populations was in fact
very good – we only have to look at the large number of Baltic German
names among the senior officials of the empire, the large measure of autono=
my
given to the Finns, and the way in which Tatar khans and Georgian princes w=
ere
fully assimilated. But the Jews presented certain intractable problems not
presented by the other peoples of the empire. The first was the
sheer number of Jews who suddenly found themselves within the bounda=
ries
of the Russian empire. Thus Hartley writes: “The empire acquired a
further c. 250,000 Jews after the establishment of the Congress King=
dom
of Poland in 1815. There was a substantial Jewish population in Bessarabia
(11.3 per cent in 1863). In 1854, the Jewish population of the whole empire=
was
estimated as 1,062,132.”[314] Th=
ese
numbers grew rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century. And by t=
he
beginning of the twentieth century, according to Lebedev, about half the
number of the Jews in the whole world were to be found in the Russian
empire. Still more impor=
tant
than the sheer numbers of Russian Jews was their social structure and their
attitude to Christians in general and Russians in particular. We have seen =
how
important the internal Jewish authority of the kahal was considered =
by
the enlightened Polish Jew Hourwitz. The Tsar’s servants were soon to
make this discovery for themselves. Tsar Paul I appointed the poet and state
official Gavriil Romanovish Derzhavin to make a special investigation of the
Jewish question. After visiting Belorussia twice, writes Platonov, Derzhavin
“noted the ominous role of the kahals – the organs of Je=
wish
self-rule on the basis of the bigoted laws of the Talmud, which ‘a
well-constructed political body must not tolerate’, as being a state
within the state. Derzhavin discovered that the Jews, who considered themse=
lves
oppressed, established in the Pale of Settlement a secret Israelite kingdom
divided into kahal districts with kahal administrations endow=
ed
with despotic power over the Jews which inhumanly exploited the Christians =
and
their property on the basis of the Talmud. …[315] “Derzhavin=
also
uncovered the concept of ‘herem’ – a curse which the k=
ahal
issued against all those who did not submit to the laws of the Talmud. This,
according to the just evaluation of the Russian poet, was ‘an
impenetrable sacrilegious cover for the most terrible crimes’. “In his no=
te
Derzhavin ‘was the first to delineate a harmonious, integral programme
for the resolution of the Jewish question in the spirit of Russian statehoo=
d,
having in mind the unification of all Russian subjects on common groundR=
17;. “Paul I, a=
fter
reading the note, agreed with many of its positions and decorated the autho=
r.
However, the tragic death of the Tsar as the result of an international Mas=
onic
conspiracy destroyed the possibility of resolving the Jewish question in a
spirit favourable for the Russian people. The new Emperor, Alexander I, bei=
ng
under the influence of a Masonic environment, adopted a liberal position. In
1802 he created a special Committee for the improvement of the Jews, whose =
soul
was the Mason Speransky, who was closely linked with the Jewish world throu=
gh
the well-known tax-farmer Perets, whom he considered his friend and with wh=
om
he lived. “Another m=
ember
of the committee was G.R. Derzhavin. As general-governor, he prepared a note
‘On the removal of the deficit of bread in Belorussia, the collaring =
of
the avaricious plans of the Jews, on their transformation, and other
things’. Derzhavin’s new note, in the opinion of specialists, w=
as
‘in the highest degree a remarkable document, not only as the work of=
an
honourable, penetrating statesman, but also as a faithful exposition of all=
the
essential sides of Jewish life, which hinder the merging of this race with =
the
rest of the population.’ “In the re=
port
of the official commission on the Jewish question which worked in the 1870s=
in
the Ministry of the Interior, it was noted that at the beginning of the rei=
gn
of Alexander I the government ‘stood already on the ground of the
detailed study of Jewry and the preparation that had begun had already at t=
hat
time exposed such sides of the public institutions of this nationality which
would hardly be tolerable in any state structure. But however often reforms
were undertaken in the higher administrative spheres, every time some magic=
al
brake held up the completion of the matter.’ This magical brake stopp=
ed
Derzhavin’s proposed reform of Jewry, which suggested the annihilatio=
n of
the kahals in all the provinces populated by Jews, the removal of al=
l kahal
collections and the limitation of the influx of Jews to a certain percentag=
e in
relation to the Christian population, while the remaining masses were to be
given lands in Astrakhan and New Russia provinces, assigning the poorest to
re-settlement. Finally, he proposed allowing the Jews who did not want to
submit to these restrictions freedom to go abroad. However, these measures =
were
not confirmed by the government.
“Derzhavin’s note and the formation of the committee
elicited great fear in the Jewish world. From the published kahal
documents of the Minsk Jewish society it becomes clear that the kahals
and the ‘leaders of the cities’ gathered in an extraordinary
meeting three days later and decided to sent a deputation to St. Petersburg
with the aim of petitioning Alexander I to make no innovations in Jewish
everyday life. But since this matter ‘required great resources’=
, a
very significant sum was laid upon the whole Jewish population as a tax,
refusal from which brought with it ‘excommunication from the
people’ (herem). From a private note given to Derzhavin by one Beloru=
ssian
landowner, it became known that the Jews imposed their herem also on the
general procurator, uniting with it a curse through all the kahals
‘as on a persecutor’. Besides, they collected ‘as
gifts’ for this matter, the huge sum for that time of a million rubles
and sent it to Petersburg, asking that ‘efforts be made to remove him,
Derzhavin, from his post, and if that was not possible, at any rate to make=
an
attempt on his life’.”[316] Not surprisingly=
, Tsar
Alexander’s Statute for the Jews of December 9, 1804 turned out to be
fairly liberal – much more liberal than the laws of Frederick Augustu=
s in
Napoleon’s Duchy of Warsaw. Its strictest provisions related to a ban=
on
Jews’ participation in the distilling and retailing of spirits. Also, writes Vit=
al,
“there was to be no relaxation of the ancient rule that Jews (negligi=
ble
exceptions apart[317]) w=
ere
to be prevented from penetrating into ‘inner Russia’. Provision=
was
made for an eventual, but determined, attack on the rabbinate’s ancie=
nt
– but in the government’s view presumptuous and unacceptable
– practice of adjudicating cases that went beyond the strict limits of
the religious (as opposed to the civil and criminal domain), but also on
rabbinical independence and authority generally….[318] “But the J=
ews
themselves could take some comfort in it being expressly stated that there =
was
to be no question of forcible conversion to Christianity; that they were no=
t to
be oppressed or harassed in the observance of their faith and in their gene=
ral
social activities; that the private property of the Jews remained inviolabl=
e;
and that Jews were not to be exploited or enserfed. They were, on the contr=
ary,
to enjoy the same, presumably full protection of the law that was accorded
other subjects of the realm. They were not to be subject to the legal
jurisdiction of the landowners on whose estates they might happen to be
resident. And they were encouraged in every way the Committee could imagine
– by fiscal and other economic incentives, for example, by the grant =
of
land and loans to develop it, by permission to move to the New Russian
Territories in the south – to undergo decisive and (so it was presume=
d)
irreversible change in the two central respects which both Friezel and
Derzhavin had indeed, and perfectly reasonably, regarded as vital: education
and employment. In this they were to be encouraged very strongly; but they =
were
not to be forced…”[319] However, the lib=
eral
Statute of 1804 was never fully implemented, and was succeeded by stricter
measures towards the end of Alexander’s reign and in the reign of his
successor, Nicholas I. There were many reasons for this. Among them, of cou=
rse,
was Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, which, if it had been
successful, would have united the Western Sephardic Jews with the Eastern A=
shkenazi
Jews in a single State, free, emancipated, and under their own legally conv=
ened
Sanhedrin. But not only did Napoleon not succeed: the invasion of Russia was
the graveyard of his empire. In 1813, and again in 1815, the Russian armies
entered Paris. From now on, the chief target of the Jews’ hatred woul=
d be
the Russian Empire… But the main rea=
son
for the tightening of Russian policy was “the Jews’ abhorrence =
of
Christianity, the intensely negative light in which non-Jewish society had
always been regarded, and the deeply ingrained suspicion and fear in which =
all
forms of non-Jewish authority were commonly held.”[320] If=
the
French delegates who emancipated the French Jews could ignore this fact, the
Russian Tsars could not. For, as the prosemitic and anti-Russian author, Da=
vid
Vital writes, “there were differences between Russian and the other
European states not only in the political relationship between state and
Church, but in respect of the place of religion generally… It was not
merely that in principle Russia continued to be held by its Autocrat and his
minions to be a Christian state with a particular duty to uphold its own
Orthodox Church. It was that, far from the matter of the state’s
specifically Christian duty slowly wasting away, as in the west, it continu=
ed
actively to exercise the minds of Russia’s rulers as one of the centr=
al
criteria by which questions of public policy were to be judged and decided.=
The
continuous search for an effective definition of the role, quality, and ult=
imate
purposes of the Autocracy itself was an enterprise which, considering the
energy and seriousness with which it was pursued, sufficed in itself to
distinguish Russia from its contemporaries. The programmes to which the sta=
te
was committed and all its structures were under obligation to promote varied
somewhat over time. But in no instance was there serious deviation from the
rule that Russian Orthodoxy was and needed to remain a central and
indispensable component of the ruling ethos. Nineteenth-century Russia was&=
#8230;
an ideological state in a manner and to a degree that had become so rare as=
to
be virtually unknown in Europe and would not be familiar again for at least=
a
century…”[321] The Tsars’
gradual tightening of policy in relation to the Jews had little or no effec=
t on
the basic problem of religious and social antagonism. As Platonov writes:
“The statute of the Jews worked out in 1804, which took practically no
account of Derzhavin’s suggestion, continued to develop the isolation=
of
the Jewish communities on Russian soil, that is, it strengthened the kah=
als
together with their fiscal, judicial, police and educational independence.
However, the thought of re-settling the Jews out of the western region
continued to occupy the government after the issuing of the statute in 1804=
. A
consequence of this was the building in the New Russian area (from 1808) of
Jewish colonies in which the government vainly hoped to
‘re-educate’ the Jews, and, having taught them to carry out
productive agricultural labour, to change in this way the whole structure of
their life. Nevertheless, even in these model colonies the kahal-rabbinic
administration retained its former significance and new settlements isolated
themselves from the Christian communities; they did not intend to merge with
them either in a national or in a cultural sense. The government not only d=
id
not resist the isolation of the Jews, but even founded for them the so-call=
ed
Israelite Christians (that is, Talmudists who had converted to Orthodoxy). A
special committee existed from 1817 to 1833.”[322] Church-State rel=
ations
were greatly strained in Alexander’s reign by the Bible Society.
“Founded in 1804 in England by Methodists and Masons, the Bible Socie=
ty
extended its wide activity also in Russia. The Society had large financial
resources. In 1810 the monetary contributions of the Bible Society attained
150,000 rubles, and at the end of 1823 there were already 300 such societie=
s in
Russia. Under the mask of love for one’s neighbour and the spreading =
of
the word of God, the bible societies began to conduct oral propaganda and
publish books directed against [the Orthodox Christian] religion and the St=
ate
order. These books were published under the management of the censor, which=
was
attached to the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Popular Enlightenment, wh=
ich
was headed by the Emperor Alexander’s close friend, Prince A.N. Golit=
syn.
The main leaders of the Bible societies were members of the Masonic lodges,=
who
preached the rejection of Orthodoxy, the Church and the rites of the Church=
. In
1819 there was published Stankevich’s book, ‘A conversation in =
the
coffin of a child’, which was hostile to the institution of the Ortho=
dox
Church. Then Yastrebov published a work entitled ‘An appeal to men to
follow the inner promptings of the Spirit of Christ’. This work was
recognised to be a sermon ‘of seditious elements against the Christian
religion’ and the good order of the State. In 1824 there appeared
‘a blasphemous interpretation of the Gospel’ published by the
director of the Russian Bible Society. This work openly pursued the aim of
stirring up people against the Church and the Throne. Besides the publicati=
on
of books directed against Orthodoxy, foreign religious propaganda was
conducted. Two Catholic priests from Southern Germany, Gosner and Lindl,
preached Protestantism, a sect beloved by the Masons. The Methodists and ot=
her
sectarians sowed their tares and introduced heresies amidst the Orthodox. At
the invitation of the Mason Speransky, the very pope of Masonry, Fessler, c=
ame
and took charge of the work of destroying the Orthodox Church. “The Ortho=
dox
clergy were silent. They could not speak against the evil that was being po=
ured
out everywhere. All the powerful men of the world were obedient instruments=
of
Masonry. The Tsar, who was falsely informed about the aims and tasks of the
Bible Society by Prince Golitsyn, gave the latter his protection from on
high.”[323]
“Golitsyn,” writes Oleg Platonov, “invited to the
leadership of the Bible Society only certain hierarchs of the Russian Church
that were close to him. He de facto removed the Holy Synod from
participation in this matter. At the same time he introduced into it secular
and clerical persons of other confessions, as if underlining that ‘the
aim of the Society is higher than the interests of one, that is the Russian
Church, and that it develops its activities in the interests of the whole of
Christianity and the whole of the Christian world’.[324] “As the
investigator of the Bible Society I.A. Chistovich wrote in 1873, ‘this
indifferent cosmopolitanism in relation to the Church, however pure its
preachers might be in their ideal simplicity of heart, was, however, was an
absurdity at that, as at any other time. Orthodoxy is, factually speaking, =
the
existing form of the Christian faith of the Greco-Russian Church, and is
completely in accord with the teaching and statutes of the Ancient Universal
Church. Therefore Christianity in its correct ecclesiastical form only exis=
ts
in the Orthodox Church and cannot have over or above it any other idea̷=
0;
But the Bible Society was directed precisely against such an ideal, and they
sought it out or presupposed it.’ “In an off=
icial
document of the Bible Society the ideas of Masonic ecumenism were openly
declared. ‘The heavenly union of faith and love,’ it says in a
report of the Russian Bible Society in 1818, ‘founded by means of Bib=
le
Societies in the great Christian family, reveal the beautiful dawn of the
wedding day of Christians and that time when there will be one pastor and o=
ne
flock, that is, when there will be one Divine Christian religion in all the
various formations of Christian confessions.’ “The well-=
known
Russian public figure, the academic A.S. Shishkov wrote on this score: R=
16;Let
us look at the acts of the Bible Societies, let us see what they consist of=
. It
consists in the intention to construct out of the whole human race one gene=
ral
republic or other and one religion – a dreamy and undiscriminating
opinion, born in the minds either of deceivers or of the vainly wise…=
If
the Bible Societies are trying only to spread piety, as they say, then why =
do
they not unite with our Church, but deliberately act separate from her and =
not
in agreement with her? If their intention consists in teaching Christian
doctrines, does not our Church teach them to us? Can it be that we were not
Christians before the appearance of the Bible Societies? And just how do th=
ey
teach us this? They recruit heterodox teachers and publish books contrary t=
o Christianity!…
Is it not strange – even, dare I say it, funny – to see our
metropolitans and hierarchs in the Bible Societies sitting, contrary to the
apostolic rules, together with Lutherans, Catholics, Calvinists and Quakers
– in a word, with all the heterodox? They with their grey hairs, and =
in
their cassocks and klobuks, sit with laymen of all nations, and a man in a
frock suit preaches to them the Word of God (of God as they call it, but no=
t in
fact)! Where is the decency, where the dignity of the church server? Where =
is
the Church? They gather in homes where there often hang on the walls pictur=
es
of pagan gods or lascivious depictions of lovers, and these gatherings of
theirs – which are without any Divine services, with the reading of
prayers or the Gospel, sitting as it were in the theatre, without the least
reverence – are equated with Church services, and a house without an
altar, unconsecrated, where on other days they feast and dance, they call t=
he
temple of God! Is this not similar to Sodom and Gomorrah?’”[325] At this critical
moment for Russian Orthodoxy, God raised up righteous defenders of the fait=
h,
such as Archimandrite, later Bishop Innocent (Smirnov) and then Metropolitan
Michael (Desnitsky) and the superior of the Novgorod Yuriev monastery,
Archimandrite Photius (Spassky). Metropolitan Mic=
hael
protested at Golitsyn’s removal of the censorship of spiritual books =
from
the Holy Synod into the hands of laymen, which meant giving free expression=
to
the pseudo-mystical sects. There were stormy scenes between the prince and =
the
metropolitan even in the Synod. “The holy
hierarch Philaret [at that time archbishop of Yaroslavl], as a Member of the
Synod was witness to the heated speeches of Metropolitan Michael in defence=
of
the Church and undoubtedly approved of his actions. In his eyes the
first-ranking hierarch was rightly considered to be a pillar of the Orthodox
Church, restraining the onslaught of false mysticism. And when this pillar
collapsed (he died[326]), =
and
the storms did not die down, Philaret, like many others, was seized by fear=
for
the destiny of the Church. Under the influence of a vision seen by someone
concerning Metropolitan Michael, a sorrowful picture of Church life, full of
misery and darkness, was revealed. He believed that in such a situation onl=
y a
person possessing the spirit and power of the Prophet Elijah could work with
benefit for the Church. However, the holy hierarch was profoundly convinced
that the Church was supported, not by people, but by the Lord. And since he=
saw
that it was impossible to save the Church only by human efforts, without the
help of God, he decided that it was better for him to withdraw himself from
everything as far as he could. Evidently, Philaret preferred a different me=
thod
of warfare with various kinds of heterodox preachers and sectarian societies
from that employed by Metropolitan Michael. And these methods were: a corre=
ct
organization of the spiritual schools throughout Russia and the spiritual
enlightenment of the Russian people through the distribution of Orthodox
spiritual literature…”[327] However, w=
hile
Philaret withdrew to concentrate on spiritual education, a man with the spi=
rit
and strength of the Prophet Elijah was found. Fr. Photius (Spassky), later
superior of Yuriev monastery near Novgorod, began his open defence of Ortho=
doxy
in 1817. “Bureaucratic and military Petersburg were angry with the bo=
ld
reprover. His first speech was unsuccessful. Photius’ struggle…
against the apostates from Orthodoxy, the followers of the so-called inner
Church, ended with his expulsion from Petersburg. “After the
expulsion of Photius the Masons celebrated their victory. But the joy of the
conquerors turned out to be short-lived. The exile was found to have follow=
ers.
Photius received special support at a difficult time of his life from the g=
reat
righteous woman, Countess Anna Alexeevna Orlova-Chesmenskaia, who presented=
a
model of piety. She not only protected him, but chose him as her leader and
confessor. The firmness and courage with which Photius fought against the
enemies of Orthodoxy attracted the mind and heart of Countess Orlova, a wom=
an
of Christian humility and virtue. After the death of her instructor, Counte=
ss
Orlova explained why it was Photius whom she chose as her spiritual directo=
r.
‘He attracted my attention,’ wrote Countess Orlova, ‘by t=
he
boldness and fearlessness with which he, being a teacher of the law of God =
at
the cadet corps and a young monk, began to attack the dominant errors in fa=
ith.
Everybody was against him, beginning with the Court. He did not fear this. I
wanted to get to know him and entered into correspondence with him. His let=
ters
seemed to me to be some kind of apostolic epistles. After getting to know h=
im
better, I became convinced that he personally sought nothing for
himself.’”[328] =
However, t=
he
struggle against Masonry was helped by other events. As we have seen, Kushe=
lev
reported to the Tsar on the revolutionary activity in the Polish and Russian
lodges. And then there was the Congress of the Sacred Alliance in Verona in
1822. Lebedev writes that at this Congress “Metternich unexpectedly, =
on
the basis of masonic documents that had unexpectedly fallen into his
possession, demonstrated that the secret societies of all countried,
being in constant communication with each other, constituted one common =
plot,
which was subject only to the secret leaders, and only for form̵=
7;s
sake accepted different programmes in different countries, depending on
circumstances and conditions. He was supported by the Prussian minister, Co=
unt
Haugwitz, who himself had formerly been a Mason. He made a detailed report =
in
which he showed that the ‘enmity’ of various unions of Masonry =
was
only for show, to divert attention. In actual fact Masonry in its depths was
one and its aim was the subjection of the world, and in the first pl=
ace
the subjection of the monarchs, so that they become weapons in the hands of=
the
Masons. Haugwitz added that since 1777 personally ruled not only a p=
art
of the Prussian lodges, but also Masonry in Poland and Russia! We can imagi=
ne
how shocked his Majesty Alexander I was as he sat in the hall. He had been =
born
in the same year of 1777 and had entered Masonry in 1803. Everybody was
stunned. The Austrian Emperor Frantz and the Russian Emperor Alexander I de=
cided
to attack this great evil. In 1822 Masonry was forbidden in Russia b=
y a
decree of the Tsar. The lodges were disbanded, the
‘brothers’’ correspondence with abroad was strictly
forbidden. At the same time this was the third powerful blow that shook the
soul of Alexander I with the collapse of his faith in the nobility of the
Masonic ideas and strivings. Strict censorship was introduced, especially in
the publication of books of a spiritual nature. Now his Majesty bega=
n to
pay attention to the rebukes of Masonry and mysticism issuing from
Archimandrite Innocent, who had suffered earlier for this, of the metropoli=
tan
of the capital Michael, Metropolitan Seraphim who succeeded him, and also of
the zealous defender of Orthodoxy Archimandrite Photius (Spassky)…
Seraphim and Photius, joining forces, were able to to show Alexander the da=
nger
for Orthodoxy of ‘fashionable’ tendencies in though, the
harmfulness of the activity of Prince Golitsyn, and return the heart of =
the
Tsar to Holy Orthodoxy. A visit to Valaam monastery, conversations with
Vladyka Seraphim, with Elder Alexis of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra made a gr=
eat
impression on Alexander and showed him that what his exalted soul had sought
throughout his life was contained in the experience, rules and methods of
Orthodox asceticism, which was just then experiencing an unusual ascent, be=
ing
armed with such books as The Philokalia and others, especially on the
doing of the Jesus prayer (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy=
on
me, a sinner!’). This was Alexander’s fourth powerful spiritual
shock. It had two kinds of consequences. When, in April, 1824, after many
fruitless exhortation, Archimandrite Photius publicly (in a private house)
pronounced ‘anathema’ on Prince Golitsyn and the latter retired=
[329], h=
is Majesty
accepted his retirement.”[330] Archimandrite Ph=
otius
wrote: “the Masonic faith is of Antichrist, and its whole teaching and
writings are of the devil”[331], a=
nd
“in the spring of 1824 [he] wrote two epistles to his Majesty. In one=
of
them he said that ‘in our time many books, and many societies and pri=
vate
people are talking about some kind of new religion, which is suppose=
dly
pre-established for the last times. This new religion, which is preached in
various forms, sometimes under the form of a new world…, sometimes of=
a
new teaching, sometimes of the coming of Christ in the Spirit, sometimes of=
the
union of the churches, sometimes under the form of some renewal and of
Christ’s supposed thousand-year reign, sometimes insinuated under the=
form
of a so-called new religion – is apostasy from the faith of God, the
faith of the apostles and the fathers. It is faith in the coming Antichrist=
, it
is propelling the revolution, it is thirsting for blood, it is filled with =
the
spirit of Satan. Its false-prophets and apostles are Jung-Stilling,
Eckartshausen, Thion, Bohme, Labzin, Fessler and the Methodists…̵=
7; “His Majes=
ty was
favourably disposed to the epistle of Archimandrite Photius in spite of the
fact that it contained criticism of all his recent friends and of the people
who had enjoyed his protection. Almost at the same time there appeared the =
book
of Gosner, about whose harmful line Archimandrite Photius had reported to h=
is
Majesty on April 17, 1824. “On April =
20,
1824, Emperor Alexander received Photius, who was ordered: ‘Come by t=
he
secret entrance and staircase into his Majesty’s study so that nobody
should know about this’. Their conversation lasted for three hours, a=
nd
on May 7 Photius sent his second epistle with the title: ‘Thoroughly
correct the work of God. The plan for the revolution published secretly, or=
the
secret iniquities practised by secret society in Russia and everywhere.R=
17; “On April =
29
Photius gave his Majesty another note: ‘To your question how to stop =
the
revolution, we are praying to the Lord God, and look what has been revealed.
Only act immediately. The way of destroying the whole plan quietly and
successfully is as follows: 1) to abolish the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs=
and
remove two others from a well-known person; 2) to abolish the Bible Society
under the pretext that there are already many printed Bibles, and they are =
now
not needed; 3) the Synod is, as before, to supervise education, to see if t=
here
is anything against the authorities and the faith anywhere; 4) to remove
Koshelev, exile Gosner, exile Fessler and exile the Methodists, albeit the
leading ones. The Providence of God is now to do nothing more openly.’=
; “This flam=
ing
defence of Orthodoxy [by Photius] together with Metropolitan Seraphim was
crowned with success: on May 15, 1824 the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs was
abolished.”[332] The Synod was now
freer; it had a new over-procurator in the place of Golitsyn, and was purge=
d of
those members that had been linked with him. The Tsar had paid heed to Phot=
ius’
appeal, and so had become a spiritual as well as a physical conqueror.
“God conquered the visible Napoleon who invaded Russia,” he sai=
d to
him. “May He conquer the spiritual Napoleon through you!” However, not eve=
ryone
saw only good in the struggle against the Bible Society and the false mysti=
cs.
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, who had been Archimandrite Photius’
early sponsor, had declined to enter into open warfare against the mystics,
partly because of his personal friendship with Golitsyn[333]<=
/a>,
and partly because he had another approach to mysticism. “At the sa=
me
time as the negative actions which Golitsyn had permitted against the Churc=
h,
the Moscovite archpastor saw in him much that was positive and recognized h=
im
to be one of the zealots of the spiritual side of the ecclesiastical organi=
sm.
One way or the other, with the support of Prince Golitsyn it had been possi=
ble
to publish many useful ecclesiastical books of a mystical character, but in=
an
Orthodox spirit. Of course, Philaret was Orthodox in his views on mysticism=
. He
clearly understood that in mysticism the most important question is its
relation to the Church and the institutions of the Church. Every form of
isolation could bring only harm, not good. Philaret recognized the usefulne=
ss
of mystical teaching in the spirit of Orthodoxy and was far from sympathizi=
ng
with a superficial approach to the latter. In the actions of the opponents =
of
mysticism he found excesses, while the very method of the struggle against =
the
latter he considered to be open to criticism and of little use. What, for
example, did the party of Arakcheev and Photius gain by their victory?
Absolutely nothing…. First of all, mystical literature was subjected =
to
terrible attacks, and that which was formerly considered useful was now
recognized to be harmful, demonic and heretical. All books of a mystical
character were ordered to be removed from the libraries of educational
institutions and a veto placed on them. Terrible difficulties were placed in
the way of the publication of patristic literature. Publishers were frighte=
ned,
as it were, to publish, for example, the writings of St. Macarius, they were
frightened to appear thereby to be supporters of mysticism. The opponents of
the Bible Society did great harm also to the translation of the Holy Script=
ures
into Russian…”[334]<=
/a> Philaret had been
taking an active part in this translation because he saw in it the best mea=
ns
of diverting the often misdirected religious aspirations of Russian society=
in
the direction of Orthodoxy. “’Let the bread not be taken away f=
rom
the child’… - Metropolitan Philaret firmly believed in the
renovatory power of the Word of God. He uninterruptedly bound his destiny w=
ith
the work on the Bible, with the translation of the Holy Scriptures. And it =
is
difficulty properly to value his Biblical exploit. For him personally it was
bound up with great trials and sorrow.”[335]<=
/a> For the work of
translation was vigorously opposed by Metropolitan Seraphim, Archimandrite
Photius and Admiral Shishkov, the new minister of education. Thus Shishkov
“denied the very existence of the Russian language – ‘as =
if
he saw in it a certain person’, he saw in it only baseness and meanne=
ss,
‘the simple people’s’ dialect of the single Slavic-Russian
language. He saw in [Philaret’s] determination to translate the Word =
of
God an ill-intentioned undertaking, ‘a weapon of revolutionary
plots’, ‘how can one dare to change the words which are venerat=
ed
as having come from the mouth of God?’… And translate it into w=
hat?
Who would read these translations, would they not pile up everywhere in tor=
n-up
copies?… From the translation of the Bible Shishkov turned to the =
Catechism
of Philaret and to his Notes on the Book of Genesis, where the
Biblical and New Testament texts were translated in a Russian
‘reworking’. He was particularly disturbed by the fact that the=
Catechism
was printed in a large print-run (18,000!) – he saw in this the c=
lear
manifestation of some criminal intention. Archimandrite Photius, on his
part,… reproached the ‘unhealthy and harmful’ work of the
Biblical translation – ‘the power of the translation was such t=
hat
it clearly overthrew the dogmas of Church teaching or cast doubt on the tru=
th
of the Church’s teaching and traditions’. And Photius directly =
attacked
Philaret, who, in his words, ‘was struggling on behalf of a God-fight=
ing
assembly’ and was supposedly ‘influencing the translation of the
Bible in order rather to give a new appearance to the Word of God, thereby
assisting faithlessness, innovation and all kinds of ecclesiastical
temptations’. He directly called Philaret’s Catechism &#=
8216;gutter
water’. As Philaret was told by his disciple Gregory, who was then re=
ctor
of the Petersburg Academy and many years later Metropolitan of Novgorod and
Petersburg, they were saying about the Bible Society that ‘it was fou=
nded
in order to introduce a reformation’. They feared the translation of =
the
Old Testament, and in particular the five books of Moses, lest it somehow
seduced people to return to the Old Testament ritual law, or fall into
Molokanism and Judaism (this thought was Magnitsky’s). They began
‘to say unpleasant things’ about Philaret in Petersburg, and it=
was
suggested that he be removed to the Caucasus as exarch of Georgia… In=
these
years Philaret was in Moscow and took no notice of the Petersburg rumours a=
nd
‘Alexandrine politics’. As before, he directly and openly defen=
ded
the work on the Bible and attempted to show that ‘the very desire to =
read
the Holy Scriptures is already an earnest of moral improvement’. To t=
he
question, what was the purpose of this new undertaking in a subject so anci=
ent
and not subject to change as Christianity and the Bible, Philaret replied:
‘What is the purpose of this new undertaking? But what is new here?
Dogmas? Rules of life? But the Bible Society preaches none of these things,=
and
gives into the hands of those who desire it the book from which the Orthodox
dogmas and pure rules of life were always drawn by the true Church in the p=
ast
and to the present day. A new society? But it introduces no novelty into
Christianity, and produces not the slightest change in the Church’=
230;
They asked: ‘Why is this undertaking of foreign origin?’ But,
replied Philaret, so much with us ‘is not only of foreign origin, but
also completely foreign’… “The suppo=
sed
zealots succeeded in obtaining the banning of Philaret’s Catechism=
on the excuse that there were ‘prayers’ in it – the Symbo=
l of
faith and the Commandments – in Russian. The Russian translation of t=
he
New Testament was not banned, but the translation of the Bible was stopped.=
And
as Metropolitan Philaret of Kiev remembered later ‘with great sorrow =
and
horror’, from fear of conversions to Judaism, ‘they found it
necessary to commit to the flames of brick factories several thousand copie=
s of
the five books of the Prophet Moses translated into Russian in the St.
Petersburg Theological Academy and printed by the Bible Society’. M.
Philaret reacted sharply and sorrowfully to these actions, which were carri=
ed
out bypassing the Holy Synod. ‘I don’t know what it was all abo=
ut,
but I cannot see that it was about anything else than Orthodoxy. I cannot
understand by whom and how and why doubt can be cast on a work as pure and
approved by all, as sacred as anything on earth. It would be no small matte=
r if
the doubt threatened only the one man who was the instrument of this work; =
but
does it not threaten the Hierarchy? Does it not threaten the Church? If the
Orthodoxy of a Catechism that was triumphantly approved by the Most =
Holy
Synod is in doubt, then will not the Orthodoxy of the Most Holy Synod itself
not be in doubt? Will not allowing this shake the Hierarchy to its foundati=
ons,
will it not disturb the peace of the Church? Will it not produce a serious
temptation for the Church?’ Metropolitan Seraphim calmed Philaret, sa=
ying
that Orthodoxy was not in question here, that everything came down to the
language, but he refused ‘to reply in a satisfactory manner’
‘why the Russian language must have no place in the Catechism,
which was, moreover, short, and intended for small children who had no
knowledge whatsoever of the Slavonic language, and for that reason were not
able to understand the truths of the faith which were expounded to them in =
that
language’… The ban on the Catechism (1828) was removed o=
nly
when all the texts had been put into Slavonic and the Russian translation of
the Symbol, the Lord’s Prayer and the Commandments had been left out.=
M.
Philaret was deeply shaken by these events. ‘Smoke is eating into the=
ir
eyes’, he wrote to his vicar, ‘and they are saying: how corrosi=
ve
is the light of the sun! They can hardly breathe from the smoke and with
difficulty decree: how harmful is the water from the source of life! Blesse=
d is
he who can not only raise his eyes to the mountains, but run there for the
clean air, the living water!… Blessed is he who can sit in his corner=
and
weep for his sins and pray for the Sovereign and the Church, and has no nee=
d to
take part in public affairs, becoming tainted with the sins of others and
multiplying his own sins!’ Above all Philaret was alarmed by the
un-thought-through hastiness and interference of secular people, ‘peo=
ple
who have been called neither by God, nor by their superiors’, and who
rise up in bold self-opiniated fashion against the appointed teachers.̶=
1;[336]<=
/a> The destruction of the=
Holy
Scriptures simply because they were in a Russian translation, and of the
official Catechism of the Russian Church simply because it quoted the
Scriptures in Russian rather than Slavonic, was a phenomenon which, in anot=
her
age, would have led to a schism. But Philaret refrained from open protest
because he did not want to create a schism. Nor, since Metropolitan Seraphi=
m of
St. Petersburg had threatened to retire if Philaret insisted on continuing =
his
translation, did he want a rupture between the two senior sees in the Churc=
h.[337]<=
/a>
However, with heresy overwhelming so many from the left, and blind prejudice
parading as traditionalism from the right, the Russian Church was in a
precarious position… Nationalism Moves Eastwar=
d The situation of=
the
Greeks in the Ottoman Empire was complex. On the one hand, as time passed a=
nd
Ottoman power weakened, persecution of the faith increased. “The righ=
ts
of the patriarch were gradually reduced to nothing; all that was left to hi=
m was
the ‘right’ of being responsible for the Christians. In the cou=
rse
of seventy-three years in the eighteenth century, the patriarch was replaced
forty-eight times! Some were deposed and reinstalled as many as five times;
many were put to torture. The rebellions of the Janissaries were accompanie=
d by
terrible bloodshed. Churches were defiled, relics cut to pieces, and the Ho=
ly
Gifts profaned. Christian pogroms became more and more frequent. In the
nineteenth century Turkey was simply rotting away, but the ‘sick man =
of
Europe’ was supported at all points by other nations in opposition to
Russia…”[338] It was because t=
he
faith was being trampled on that the Greek revolution of 1821 had widespread
support in the Church – several metropolitans, especially in the
Peloponnese, were initiated into the Philiki Etairia, as was Archbis=
hop
Cyprian of Cyprus, – and was understood as a struggle “for faith
and fatherland” in response to the insults cast at both by the Turks.=
On the other han=
d,
certain sections of the Greek population lived well, notably the Phanariot
merchants, who had control of most of the trade of the empire and were often
placed in positions of considerable power over their fellow Orthodox Christ=
ians
of other nationalities, a power they did not always use with sensitivity. <=
o:p> Thus “by
1721,” writes Charles Frazee, “the native Rumanian boyars had a=
ll
been removed and Greek Phanariotes were appointed hospodars, or prin=
ces
of the area. Large areas of land came to be owned by the church, especially=
by
monasteries, which were more numerous here than in any other Balkan
land.”[339] The situation was
similar in other Balkan lands. “The first Greek had been appointed to=
the
patriarchate of Peč in 1737 at the insistence of the Dragoman Alexandr=
os
Mavrokordatos on the plea that the Serbs could not be trusted. The Phanario=
tes
began a policty which led to the exclusion of any Serbian nationals in the
episcopacy.”[340] In September, 17=
66 the
Ecumenical Patriarch Samuel absorbed the Serbian patriarchate at Peč i=
nto
his own patriarchate, and in January, 1767 the Bulgarian Church was absorbed
with the forced retirement of Archbishop Arsenius of Ochrid. “Everywhere
former bishops who were native Bulgars and Serbs were deposed and replaced =
by
Greeks. This canonical abuse of power was accompanied by forced
‘Grecizing’, particularly in Bulgaria, where it later served as=
the
basis of the so-called Bulgarian question. “This same=
sad
picture prevailed in the East as well, in the patriarchates of Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Alexandria, where Orthodox Arabs became the victims of this fo=
rced
unification. All these offenses, stored up and concealed – all these
unsettled accounts and intrigues – would have their effect when the
Turkish hold began to slacken and the hour for the rebirth of the Slavic
peoples drew near…”[341] So, mixed with t=
he
righteous nationalism, “for faith and fatherland”, of such
honourable Greek patriotic organizations as the Philiki Hetairia, wa=
s an
unrighteous, fallen nationalism influenced by the ideas of the French
revolution and ready at times to put the narrow interests of the Greek nati=
on
above those of the other oppressed Orthodox under the Turkish yoke. Such was
the nationalist bombast of, for example, Benjamin of Lesbos, who wrote:
“Nature has set limits to the aspirations of other men, but not to th=
ose
of the Greeks. The Greeks were not in the past and are not now subject to t=
he
laws of nature.”[342] This mixed chara=
cter
of the Greek revolution determined its mixed outcome, and the fact that, in=
the
course of the nineteenth century, Orthodox Eastern Europe was liberated, not
through a single, united Orthodox movement of liberation, but by separate
nationalist movements – Greek, Bulgarian, Serb, Romanian – which
ended up, in 1912-1913, fighting each other rather than the common enemy=
230; The dreams of the
Phanariot Greeks for freedom were excited by a number of causes. First, the=
re
were the political factors: the “liberation” of the Ionian isla=
nds
by Napoleon and then by the British, the rebellion of the Muslim warlord Ali
Pasha against the Sultan in 1820, and the inexorable gradual southward
expansion of the Russian Empire, which drew Greek minds to the prophecies a=
bout
the liberation of “the City”, Constantinople, by to xanthon
genos, “the yellow-haired race” – whom the Greeks
identified with the Russians. Secondly, the wealthier merchants chafed at t=
he
restrictions on the accumulation of capital in the Ottoman empire, and long=
ed
for the more business-friendly kind of regime that their travels acquainted
them with in Western Europe. And thirdly, and most importantly, in the last
quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth,
these merchants subsidised an explosion in the publication of Greek books a=
nd
in the provision of educational opportunities for young Greeks. Such an emphasis=
on
education had been made by the holy new Hieromartyr Cosmas of Aitolia (+177=
9),
who built over two hundred schools. But he emphasised education in Orthodox=
y in
order to escape the snares of western culture.[343] Th=
ese
merchants, however, sent young Greeks to the universities of Western Europe,
especially Germany. “Here,” writes Clogg, “they came into
contact not only with the heady ideas of the Enlightenment, of the French
Revolution and of romantic nationalism but they were made aware of the
extraordinary hold which the language and civilisation of ancient Greece had
over the minds of their educated European contemporaries.[344] “During the
centuries of the Tourkokratia knowledge of the ancient Greek world h=
ad
all but died out, but, under the stimulus of western classical scholarship,=
the
budding intelligentsia developed an awareness that they were the heirs to an
heritage that was universally revered throughout the civilised world. By the
eve of the war in independence this progonoplexia (ancestor obsessio=
n)
and arkhaiolatreia (worship of antiquity), to use the expressive Gre=
ek
terms, had reached almost obsessive proportions. It was precisely during the
first decade of the nineteenth century that nationalists, much to the
consternation of the Church authorities, began to baptise their children wi=
th
the names of (and to call their ships after) the worthies of ancient Greece
rather than the Christian saints….”[345] The Church’=
;s
concern was understandable; for the ideas inflaming the minds of young Gree=
ks
were far from Orthodox. Especially dangerous was the western revolutionary
ideology of freedom – not spiritual freedom, but the freedom of the
individual and the nation from all external bonds. The Greeks alrea=
dy had
experience of the bitter fruits of revolution; for in 1770 “the ill-f=
ated
Orlov expedition to the Peloponessos, launched by Catherine the Great, and =
the
combined Russian-Greek attempt to free the Peloponnesos from the tyranny of=
the
Ottoman Muslims, ended in disaster. In addition to destroying the Greek
military forces and many of the Russians, the Albanian Muslim mercenaries, =
who
were called in by the Ottoman Muslims, wreaked havoc on the local populatio=
n…”[346] But
this tragedy did not prevent many Greeks, and even some prominent churchmen,
from being influenced by the French revolution of 1789. The Church’=
;s
attitude to the revolution was expressed in a work called Paternal Teach=
ing,
which appeared in the revolutionary year of 1789, and which, according to
Charles Frazee, "was signed by Anthimus of Jerusalem but was probably =
the
work of the later Patriarch Gregory V. The document is a polemic against
revolutionary ideas, calling on the Christians 'to note how brilliantly our
Lord, infinite in mercy and all-wise, protects intact the holy and Orthodox
Faith of the devout, and preserves all things'. It warns that the devil is
constantly at work raising up evil plans; among them is the idea of liberty,
which appears to be so good, but is only there to deceive the people. The
document points out that [the struggle for] political freedom is contrary to
the Scriptural command to obey authority, that it results in the impoverish=
ment
of the people, in murder and robbery. The sultan is the protector of Christ=
ian
life in the Ottoman Empire; to oppose him is to oppose God."[347] Patriarch Gregor=
y was
also a determined opponent of the religious ecumenism that was the other si=
de
of the coin of Masonry’s call to revolutionary violence: “Let us
neither say nor think that [they who teach erroneous doctrines] also believ=
e in
one Lord, have one Baptism, and confess the one Faith. If their opinions are
correct, then by necessity our own must be incorrect. But if our own doctri=
nes
are upheld and believed and given credence and confessed by all as being go=
od,
true, correct, and unadulterated, manifestly then, the so-called sacraments=
of
all heretics are evil, bereft of divine grace, abominable, and loathsome, a=
nd
the grace of ordination and the priesthood by which these sacraments are
performed has vanished and departed from them. And when there is no priesth=
ood,
all the rest are dead and bereft of spiritual grace. We say these things,
beloved, lest anyone – either man or woman – be misled by the
heterodox regarding their apparent sacraments and their so-called Christian=
ity.
Rather, let each one stand firmly in the blameless and true Faith of Christ,
especially that we may draw to ourselves those who have been led astray and=
, as
though they were own members, unite them to the one Head, Christ, to Whom be
glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.”[348] “One of the
first to develop plans for a co-ordinated revolt,” writes Clogg,
“was Rigas Velestinlis, a Hellenised Vlach from Thessaly. After acqui=
ring
his early political experience in the service of the Phanariot hospodars=
of the Danubian principalities, he had been powerfully influenced by the Fr=
ench
Revolution during a sojourn in Vienna in the 1790s. The political tracts, a=
nd
in particular his Declaration of the Rights of Man, which he had pri=
nted
in Vienna and with which he aspired to revolutionise the Balkans, are redol=
ent
of the French example. Potentially the most significant was the New
Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Rumeli, Asia Minor, the Island=
s of
the Aegean and the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. This envis=
aged
the establishment of a revived Byzantine Empire but with the substitution of
republican institutions on the French model for the autocracy of Byzantium.
Although it was intended to embrace all the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empi=
re,
Greeks, whether by birth or by culture, were to predominate. Rigas’
carefully articulated schemes were without result for he was betrayed (by a
fellow Greek) in Trieste as he was about to leave the Hapsburg territory to
preach the gospel of revolution in the Balkans. With a handful of fellow
conspirators he was put to death by the Ottomans in Belgrade in May
1798.”[349] However,
Masonic-revolutionary ideas were not at the root of the main Greek
revolutionary organisation, the Philiki Hetairia, which, if recalling
Masonry in its four grades of mystery (some form of mystification was
necessitated by its underground character), was nevertheless clearly Orthod=
ox
Christian in its ideology.[350] Th=
e Hetairia
was founded in 1814 by three young Greeks living in Odessa: Emmanuel Xantho=
s,
Nicholas Skouphas and Athanasius Tsakalov. “Its ultimate aim was the
liberation of Greece and the restoration of a Greek Empire. More immediatel=
y it
was concerned with the ‘purification’ of the Greek nation…=
;.
Byt 1821 the Hetairia had a total of 911 members.”[351] The Hetairia sen=
t an
envoy to Count Ioannis Capodistrias, a Greek who was the Tsar’s Minis=
ter
of Foreign Affairs, in St. Petersburg. He was appalled, and advised them th=
at
“if they [the conspirators] do not want to perish themselves and dest=
roy
together with themselves their innocent and unfortunate Race, they should
abandon their revolutionary plots and live as before under the Governments =
they
find themselves, until Providence decides otherwise.”[352] Ag=
ain,
when the revolution broke out, he said: “So, a premature revolution f=
or
Greece that is going to destroy all my efforts for a happy future.”[353]
However, he did not betray their plan of the plotters, and when the revolut=
ion
began he resigned his post as minister and went to Geneva, where he worked
quietly to help the insurgents. The Hetairia also
failed to enrol Patriarch Gregory, who did not agree with the form of oath =
of
Hetairia or the swearing of obedience to unknown authorities.[354]
However, Patriarch Gregory’s negative attitude towards the revolution=
was
not shared by another famous hierarch of the time who came from the same
village of Dhimitsana in the Peloponnese: Metropolitan Germanus of Old Patr=
as.
The attitudes of these two hierarchs came to symbolise a fundamental divisi=
on
in Greek society that was to continue for decades… The
Greek Revolution The revolution b=
egan
in March, 1821 when the Phanariot Greek and Russian Army General Alexander
Ypsilantis, who had become president of the Hetairia the year before, cross=
ed
from Russia into Turkish-occupied Moldavia with a small band of Greeks. Four
weeks later, the Peloponnese rose under the leadership of Metropolitan Germ=
anus
and eight other bishops. Although supported by the Hospodar of Molda=
via,
Alexander Soutsos, Ypsilantis' force was repudiated by both the Russian Tsar
and the Romanian peasants,[355] an=
d so
was soon crushed by the Turks at the battle of Dragatsani. Soutsos fled to
Russia, while Ypsilantis fled to the Hapsburg lands, where he died in priso=
n.
But Germanus' campaign prospered, in spite of the deaths of five of the bis=
hops
in prison; and soon the south of Greece and the wealthy islands of Hydra,
Spetsae and Poros were in Greek hands. This put Patriar=
ch
Gregory in Constantinople in an impossible position. The sultan was convinc=
ed
that he was at least in part to blame for the resurrection. So Gregory
“called a meeting of the Greek leaders and people to discuss their co=
mmon
peril that same day after he had met with the sultan. Mahmud had demanded t=
hat
the patriarch and Synod excommunicate those responsible for the uprising and
those who had killed innocent Turks. At the patriarchate, therefore, the pa=
triarch
of Jerusalem, Polykarpos, four synodal archbishops, Karolos Kallimachi,
Hospodar of Wallachia, the Dragoman of the Porte, Konstantinos Mourousi, and
the Grand Logothete, Stephanos Mavroyeni, gathered to decided on their next
step. A number of other Greeks were also in attendance ‘of every class
and condition’. Gregorios and Mourousi presided. The assembled Greeks
were all exhorted ‘to carefully guard against any move or action cont=
rary
to their allegiance and fidelity to their Sovereign’. A letter was
drafted which incorporated the sultan’s suggestion and was sent off t=
o be
printed at the patriarchal press. The patriarch then urged that the Greeks
prepare to leave the city quickly, promising that he would stay: ‘As =
for
me, I believe that my end is approaching, but I must stay at my post to die,
and if I remain, then the Turks will not be given a plausible pretext to
massacre the Christians of the capital.’ “The lette=
r of
excommunication against the revolutionaries appeared on Palm Sunday, 4 Apri=
l,
in all the Greek churches of the capital signed by the patriarch, Polykarpo=
s of
Jerusalem, and twenty-one other prelates. In part, the document stated:
‘Gratitude to our benefactors is the first of virtues and ingratitude=
is
severely condemned by the Holy Scriptures and declared unpardonable by Jesus
Christ; Judas the ungrateful traitor offers a terrible example of it; but i=
t is
most strongly evidenced by those who rise against their common protector and
lawful sovereign, and against Christ, who has said that there is no rule or
power but comes from God. It was against this principle that Michael Soutzos
and Alexandros Ypsilantis, son of a fugitive, sinned with an audacity beyond
example, and have sent emissaries to seduce others, and to conduct them to =
the
abyss of perdition; many have been so tempted to join an unlawful hetairia =
and
thought themselves bound by their oath to continue [as] members, but an oat=
h to
commit a sin was itself a sin, and not binding – like that of Herod, =
who,
that he might not break a wicked obligation committed a great wickedness by=
the
death of John the Baptist.’ The text ended by solemnly condemning and
excommunicating Soutzos and Ypsilantis, having been signed on the altar its=
elf.
The patriarchal letter was the final blow to strike Ypsilantis’ fading
expedition in the Principalities.”[356] Some have argued=
that
the patriarch secretly repudiated this anathema; which is why the Turks,
suspecting him of treachery, hanged him on the Sunday of Pascha.
Gregory’s biographer, Kandiloros writes: “As the representative=
of
Christ it cannot be believed that the patriarch signed such a letter. But as
the head of a threatened people, he had to take measures, as well as he cou=
ld,
to save his powerless and hard-pressed population from being massacred.R=
21;[357]
“In any case,” writes Fr. Anthony Gavalas, “the anathema =
was
ignored, as were all the other letters unfavourable to the plans of the
revolutionaries, as having been issued under duress. There is an opinion th=
at
the patriarch knew that the anathema would be so considered and issued it,
hoping to placate the Turks on the one hand, and on the other, to gain time=
for
the revolution to gain strength.”[358] In the opinion o=
f the
present writer, while the patriarch was undoubtedly a patriot who longed for
the freedom of his country, his righteousness of character precludes the
possibility that he could have been plotting against a government to which =
he
had sworn allegiance and for which he prayed in the Divine Liturgy, or that=
he
could have been hypocritical in such an important church act. After all, as=
we
have seen, he had always refused to join the Philiki Hetairia. In th=
is
connection it is significant that the patriarch’s body was picked up =
by a
Russian ship and taken to Odessa, mutely pointing to where the organisation
that had indirectly caused his death was centred. The Greeks had t=
o pay
a heavy price for the political freedom they gained. After the martyrdom of
Patriarch Gregory, the Turks ran amok in Constantinople; and there were fur=
ther
pogroms in Smyrna, Adrianople, Crete and especially Chios, which had been
occupied by revolutionaries from Samos and where in reprisal tens of thousa=
nds
were killed or sold into slavery.[359]
Although many Greeks undoubtedly fought for the sake of Orthodoxy against
Islam, the essentially western ideology of several of their leaders[360]
explains why so many young westerners, among whom the most famous was the p=
oet
Byron, to join the Greek freedom-fighters. But the westerners were fighting,
not for Orthodox Greece, but for their romantic vision of ancient, pagan
Greece. Significantly, there were no volunteers from Orthodox Russia, whose
tsars correctly saw in the revolutionary spirit a greater threat to the
well-being of the Orthodox peoples than Turkish rule. The Greeks after the
revolution were desperately poor and even more desperately divided - divided
both amongst themselves and with their compatriots in the Ottoman empire. F=
or
the new patriarch, Eugenius, again anathematised the insurgents. In respons=
e, twenty-eight
bishops and almost a thousand priests in free Greece in turn anathematised =
the
patriarch, calling him a Judas and a wolf in sheep's clothing.[361] The
Free Greeks now commemorated “all Orthodox bishops” at the Litu=
rgy
instead of the patriarch. Not surprisingly, in 1824 the patriarchate refuse=
d a
request from the Greek Church for Holy Chrism.[362] At the same time=
, in
1822 the Free Greeks entered into negotiations with the Pope for help again=
st
the Turks. Very soon the Faith was being betrayed for the sake of the polit=
ical
struggle, as it had been at the council of Florence four hundred years befo=
re.
President Mavrokordatos wrote to the Papal Secretary of State: “The c=
ries
of a Christian nation threatened by complete extermination have the right t=
o receive
the compassion of the head of Christendom.”[363] Gr=
eek
delegates to the meeting of the Great Powers in Verona wrote to Pope Pius V=
II
that the Greek revolution was not like the revolutions of other nations rai=
sed
against altar and throne. Instead, it was being fought in the name of relig=
ion
and “… asks to be placed under the protection of a Christian
dynasty with wise and permanent laws”. In another letter the delegates
addressed the pope as “the common father fo the faithful and head of =
the
Christian religion”, and said that the Greeks were worthy of the
pope’s “protection and apostolic blessing”. Metropolitan
Germanus was even empowered to speak concerning the possibility of a reunio=
n of
the Churches. However, it was the Pope who drew back at this point, pressur=
ized
by the other western States which considered the sultan to be a legitimate
monarch.[364] How soon had a
struggle fought “for faith and fatherland” betrayed the faith w=
hile
not really winning the fatherland! For real political independence had not =
been
achieved: if the Turks had been driven out, then the British and French and
later the Germans came to take their place. The election of Capodistrias as
“governor of Greece” in 1827 brought a limited degree of order
under a truly Orthodox ruler. But he made many enemies by his contempt for =
the
élites of Greek society.[365] An=
d on
October 9, 1831 he was assassinated as he entered a church… On May 7, 1832
Britain, France, Russia and Bavaria signed a treaty in London which guarant=
eed
Greece’s independence and named Otto, son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria=
, as
king. And yet this independence was purely nominal. When Byron was dying in
Greece in 1824, the Duc d’Orléans had commented “that he=
was
dying so that one day people would be able to eat sauerkraut at the foot of=
the
Acropolis”. He was not far from the truth; for Greece was now under a
German Catholic king ruling through German ministers and maintained in powe=
r by
German troops. Zamoyski comments sardonically: “Sauerkraut indeedR=
30;”[366] The
Serbian Revolution After the
Turkish conquest, the influence of the Serbian Church increased, and thanks=
to
the collaborative policies of the Serb leaders after Kosovo, the Turks even
allowed the re-establishment of the Serbian Patriarchate at Peć in 155=
7. As Branimir Anzu=
lovic
writes, “it no longer served the Serbian state because that state had
ceased to exist; but it served the Ottoman state, and as the only surviving
national institution, it became the main carrier of Serbian national identi=
ty.
Its nonreligious functions were even expanded under the Turkish system of
millets – ethnoreligious communities of non-Islamic peoples, which
enjoyed a considerable degree of religious and cultural autonomy and were in
charge of administrative duties such as the collection of taxes… [One]
scholar described the Serbian Orthodox Church, at the time of the Peć
patriarchate, as “a sort of a vassal clerocratic state within the
framework of the power military-feudal empire”’”.[367] The Serbian Chur=
ch was
in general loyal to its Turkish masters (the first patriarch of the Peć
patriarchate was a close relative of the Grand Vizier Mehmet Pasha Sokollu)=
.[368]
However, when, in 1690, King Leopold I of Hungary invited them to cross ove=
r to
his land, 40,000 Serbs (according to another source, 37,000 families) took =
up
his invitation with the blessing of Patriarch Arsenije III. This led to the
foundation of the Serbian metropolitanate of Karlovcy in Slavonia in 1713.
Towards the end of the 19th century, there were six dioceses und=
er
Karlovcy with about a million faithful.[369] In
1766 the Peč patriarchate was abolished, as was the autocephalous
archbishopric of Ochrid in the following year. From that time the role of t=
he
Church decreased, without ever ceasing to be important, and non-Orthodox
political models and theories began to infiltrate Serbian society, not least
the nationalist ideas of the French revolution, which played a significant =
part
in the Serbs’ own revolution in the first half of the 19th
century. The Serbian revo=
lution
began as a rebellion against the Dahis, the four top Janissary commanders, =
who
were terrorising both the Serbs and the Muslims in the province and effecti=
vely
annulling the autonomy that the sultan had given them. Tim Judah writes:
“Local leaders, including Kardjordje, a swine dealer who had fought b=
oth
in the Austrian Freikorps and in the Turkish-organised Serbian army, began =
to
plot their removal. But the Dahis struck first. In early 1804 they executed=
up
to 150 of the Serbian knezes or local leaders in an operation they called &=
#8216;The
Cutting Down of the Chiefs’. It was this that provoked the rebellion.=
At
first the Serbs did not claim to be fighting to rid themselves of Ottoman
domination but rather claimed to be rebelling in the name of the sultan aga=
inst
the repressive Dahis. Karadjordje was elected as leader of the uprising on =
14
February 1804. He soon succeeded in liberating almost all of the pashalik,
especially after the sultan ordered forces from Bosnia to intervene to fini=
sh
off the Dahis. “At this e=
arly
stage, the Serbs were joined by at least part of the pashalik’s Muslim
population, whom the Serbs called the ‘Good Turks’, and who were
also keen to rid themselves of the rapacious Dahis. However, as the Serb aim
soon changed to a demand for complete independence, co-operation rapidly tu=
rned
to confrontation and massacre. “In the
negotiations that followed the defeat of the Dahis, the Serbs demanded the
restoration of their autonomy, but the Turks became alarmed. The rebels were
making contact with Serbs in other parts of the Ottoman Empire and with
semi-independent Montenegro. Karadjordje had also sent a delegation to Russ=
ia
to appeal for help, and he was talking ‘of throwing off the yoke that=
the
Serb has borne since Kosovo’. Another Ottoman army was sent to crush =
the rebels,
but it was soundly beaten at Ivankovac on 18 August 1805. Meeting in Smeder=
ovo
in 1805, the insurgents decided not only to repudiate the pashalik’s
annual tribute to the sultan but to take the struggle beyond the borders of=
the
province. In reply a jihad or holy war was declared against them. “At the en=
d of
1806, Russia went to war with the Ottomans, and the Serbs were encouraged to
keep fighting. A modest Russian force was sent to fight alongside the Serbs.
Within weeks, though, the Russians and the Turks signed the Treaty of Slobo=
zia,
in which neither side bothered to mention the Serbs… “In 1809,
fighting between the Serbs and Turks resumed, with some Russian help. Russia
soon needed to muster all its strength to counter Napoleon’s campaign=
of
1812, so a peace treaty was concluded in Bucharest with the Turks. It speci=
fied
that Serbia would revert to Ottoman rule, with the proviso that there would=
be
a general amnesty for participants in the insurrection.[370] The
Serbs rejected this, but their defences collapsed in the ensuing Turkish
onslaught. Karadjordje fled, along with thousands of refugees, who sought
protection in the Habsburg provinces, Wallachia and Russia. The Turkish
vengeance was terrible. Villages were burned and thousand were sent into
slavery. On 17 October 1813 alone, 1,800 women and children were sold as sl=
aves
in Belgrade. Soon afterwards a halt was called to the reprisals, and many of
the refugees began returning. Some of the former insurgent leaders, such as
Miloš Obrenović from the Rudnik district (who had not fled), now =
made
their peace with the Turks, who confirmed them in their local positions of
power. It was an untenable situation. In 1814, one of Karadjordje’s
former commanders started a new rebellion, but it did not catch on. In the =
wake
of the fresh reprisals following its defeat, however, preparations were made
for yet another uprising. Led by Obrenović, the rebels had by mid-July
1815 succeeded in freeing a large part of the pashalik. “Just as b=
efore,
it was the international situation which helped shape developments. With
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo in 1815, the Turks were wary of the Russians =
in
case they intervened again on behalf of the Serbs. So, after much negotiati=
on,
a deal was struck with Obrenović. The Belgrade pashalik was to become =
an
autonomous province. Serbian chiefs were granted the right to collect taxes,
but the Turks could remain only in the towns and forts of the province. “Obrenovi&=
#263;
was born in 1783 into a poor family which had originally come to Serbia from
Hercegovina. As a child he tended cattle for his neighbours and later joined
his brother, who had his own livestock business. He was a brave commander in
the first uprising and after the second he proved himself a shrewd but brut=
al
and murderous politician. He constantly sought increased concessions from t=
he
Turks while he gradually undermined their residual power in Serbia. In 1817,
influenced by the Philike Hetairia, a Greek revolutionary secret
society, Karadjordje slipped back into Serbia. Sensing danger for both hims=
elf
and his plans, Obrenović sent his agents who murdered Karadjordje with=
an
axe. His skinned head was stuffed and sent to the sultan. This act was to s=
park
off a feud between the families which was periodically to convulse Serbian
politics until 1903. Then the last Obrenović and his wife were murdere=
d by
being thrown out of the palace windows in Belgrade. The hapless King Aleksa=
ndar
allegedly grabbed the parapet, but he fell to his death after one of the
conspirators used his sword to chop off his fingers. “Miloš
Obrenović was as rapacious as any Turk had been in collecting taxes. As
his rule became ever more oppressive, there were seven rebellions against h=
im
including three major uprisings between 1815 and 1830. In 1830 the sultan
nevertheless formally accepted Miloš’s hereditary princeship.=
221;[371]The
Murder of Tsar Paul
The
Golden Age of Masonry
The
Holy Alliance
The Jewish Question
The
Reaction against Masonry
It was hardly to=
be
expected that such a ruler would restore the glorious traditions of St. Sab=
bas
and the Nemanja dynasty. And Serbian history from now on was dominated by t=
wo
sharply contrasting, but equally unOrthodox ideologies: the westernizing,
secular tradition deriving from the Enlightenment, and the bloodthirsty,
tribal-heroic and nationalist tradition represented by the Montenegrin
bishop-prince and poet Petar Petrović Njegoš (d. 1851). Montenegro
united Church and State in the only completely independent Orthodox land in=
the
Balkans. Fortescue writes: “In 1516, Prince George, fearing lest quar=
rels
should weaken his people (it was an elective princedom), made them swear al=
ways
to elect the bishop as their civil ruler as well. These prince-bishops were
called Vladikas… In the 18th century the Vladika Daniel I
(1697-1737) succeeded in securing the succession for his own family. As
Orthodox bishops have to be celibate, the line passed (by an election whose=
conclusion
was foregone) from uncle to nephew, or from cousin to cousin. At last, in 1=
852,
Danilo, who succeeded his uncle as Vladika, wanted to marry, so he refused =
to
be ordained bishop and turned the prince-bishopric into an ordinary secular
princedom.”[372]
In view of the S=
erbian
wars of the 1990s, it is important to note the long-term influence of the
Montenegrim Prince-Bishop Njegoš’ famous poem, The Mountain
Wreath, which glorifies the mass slaughter of Muslims who refuse to con=
vert
to Christianity on a certain Christmas Eve. The principal character, Vladyka
Danilo, says:
We will baptize with water or with blo=
od!
We’ll drive the plague out of th=
e pen!
Let the son of horror ring forth,
A true altar on a blood-stained rock!<= o:p>
And in another poem Njegoš writes=
that
“God’s dearest sacrifice is a boiling stream of tyrant’s
blood”.[373]
An armed struggle
against the infidel for the sake of Christ and His glory could indeed have
served as the subject of a worthy and truly Christian glorification. But th=
ere
is little that is Christian here. Even Bishop Nikolai Velimirović, an
admirer of Njegoš, had to admit: “Njegoš’s Christolog=
y is
almost rudimentary. No Christian priest has ever said less about Christ than
this metropolitan from Cetinje.”[374] Th=
is
bloodthirsty, nationalist and only superficially Christian tradition, was
continued by such figures as the poet Vuk Karadžić, who called the
Serbs “the greatest people on the planet” and boosted the
nation’s self-esteem “by describing a culture 5,000 years old a=
nd
claiming that Jesus Christ and His apostles had been Serbs.”[375] It=
was
to have profound effects on the future of Serbia, and through Serbia, on
European history as a whole.
The
Decembrist Rebellion
The wave of
revolutionary violence reached Russia after the supposed death of Tsar
Alexander I on November 19, 1825. During the interregnum, on December 14, a
group of army officers attempted to seize power in St. Petersburg.
Already in 1823
Alexander I had been given a list of the future “Decembrists”. =
But
he refused to act against them. Archpriest Lev Lebedev explains why:
“‘It is not for me to punish them,’ said his Majesty, and
cast the paper into the fire. ‘I myself shared their views in my
youth,’ he added. That means that now, in 1823, Alexander I evaluated
these diversions of his youth as sin, which also had to receive their
retribution. Neither he nor [Grand Duke] Constantine [his elder son] had=
the
spiritual, moral right to punish the plotters, insofar as both of them =
had
been guilty of the plot against their own father! That was the essen=
ce
of the matter! Only he had the right to punish who had in no way been
involved in the parricide and the revolutionary delusions – that is, =
the
younger brother Nicholas. It was to him that the reins of the govern=
ment
of Russia were handed.”[376]
The Decembrist
conspirators were divided into a Northern Society based in St. Petersburg a=
nd a
Southern society based in Tulchin, headquarters of the Second Army in the
Ukraine.
“In the id=
eology
of the Northern Society especially,” writes Walicki, “there were
certain elements reminiscent of the views of the aristocratic opposition of=
the
reign of Catherine II. Many of the members in this branch of the Decembrist
movement were descendants of once powerful and now impoverished boyar
families… Nikita Muraviev claimed that the movement was rooted in the
traditions of Novgorod and Pskov, of the twelfth-century Boyar Duma, of the
constitutional demands presented to Anne by the Moscow nobility in 1730, an=
d of
the eighteenth-century aristocratic opposition. The poet Kondraty Ryleev
painted an idealized portrait of Prince Andrei Kurbsky (the leader of the b=
oyar
revolt against Ivan the Terrible) and even devoted one of his ‘elegie=
s’
to him…In his evidence before the Investigating Commission after the
suppression of the revolt, Petr Kakhovsky stated that the movement was
primarily a response to the high-handedness of the bureaucracy, the lack of
respect for ancient gentry freedom, and the favoritism shown to foreigners.
Another Northern Decembrist, the writer and literary critic Aleksandr
Bestuzhev… wrote that his aim was ‘monarchy tempered by
aristocracy’. These and similar facts explain Pushkin’s view,
expressed in the 1830’s, that the Decembrist revolt had been the last
episode in the age-old struggle between autocracy and boyars…
“The Decem=
brists
used the term ‘republic’ loosely, without appearing to be fully
aware that there were essential differences between, for instance, the Roma=
n republic,
the Polish gentry republic, the old Russian city states, and modern bourgeo=
is
republics… Muraviev modeled his plan for a political system on the Un=
ited
States… The theorists of the Northern Society made no distinction bet=
ween
criticism of absolutism from the standpoint of the gentry and similar criti=
cism
from a bourgeois point of view. Hence they saw no difficulty in reconciling
liberal notions taken largely from the works of Bentham, Benjamin Constant =
and
Adam Smith with an idealization of former feudal liberties and a belief in =
the
role of the aristocracy as a ‘curb on despotism’. The theoretic=
al
premise here was the ‘juridical world view’ of the Enlightenmen=
t,
according to which legal and political forms determined the revolution of
society.”[377]
=
; The Northern Decembris=
ts
were in favour of the emancipation of the serfs. However, they insisted that
the land should remain with the gentry, thereby ensuring the continued
dependence of the serfs on the gentry. “The conviction that the peasa=
nts
ought to be overjoyed merely at the abolition of serfdom was shared by many
Decembrists. Yakushkin, for instance, could not conceal his exasperation at=
his
peasants’ demand for land when he offered to free them. When they were
told that the land would remain the property of the landlord, their answer =
was:
‘Then things had better stay as they were. We belong to the master, b=
ut
the land belongs to us.’”[378]
The Northern
Decembrists worked out a new interpretation of Russian history conceived
“as an antithesis to Karamzin’s theory of the beneficial role of
autocracy”. “An i=
nnate
Russian characteristic, the Decembrists maintained – one that later
developments had blunted but not destroyed – was a deep-rooted love of
liberty. Autocracy had been unknown in Kievan Russia: the powers of the pri=
nces
had been strictly circumscribed there and decisions on important affairs of
state were taken by the popular assemblies. The Decembrists were especially
ardent admirers of the republican city-states of Novgorod and Pskov. This
enthusiasm was of practical significance, since they were convinced that the
‘spirit of liberty’ that had once imbued their forbears was sti=
ll
alive; let us but strike the bell, and the people of Novgorod, who have
remained unchanged throughout the centuries, will assemble by the bell towe=
r,
Ryleev declared. Kakhovsky described the peasant communes with their
self-governing mir as ‘tiny republics’, a living surviva=
l of
Russian liberty. In keeping with this conception, the Decembrists thought of
themselves as restoring liberty and bringing back a form of governme=
nt
that had sound historical precedents.”[379]
This reinterpret=
ation
of Russian history was false. Russia was imbued from the beginning with the
spirit of Orthodox autocracy and patriarchy: the “republics” of
Pskov and Novgorod were exceptions to the historical rule. And if Kievan
autocracy was less powerful than the Muscovite or Petersburg autocracies, t=
his
was not necessarily to its advantage. Russia succumbed to the Mongols becau=
se
the dividedness of her princes precluded a united defence. And there can be
little doubt that she would not have survived into the nineteenth century a=
s an
independent Orthodox nation if she had not been an autocracy.
The leader of the
Southern Society, Colonel Pavel Pestel, had more radical ideas in his draft=
for
a constitution, Russian Justice, which was based on two assumptions:
“that every man has a natural right to exist and thus to a piece of l=
and
large enough to allow him to make a basic living; and that only those who
create surplus wealth have a right to enjoy it. After the overthrow of tsar=
ism,
therefore, Pestel proposed to divide land into two equal sectors: the first
would be public property (or, more accurately, the property of the communes=
);
the second would be in private hands. The first would be used to ensure
everyone a minimum living, whereas the second would be used to create surpl=
us
wealth. Every citizen was entitled to ask his commune for an allotment large
enough to support a family; if the commune had more land available, he would
even be able to demand several such allotments. The other sector would rema=
in
in private hands. Pestel felt that his program ensured every individual a f=
orm
of social welfare in the shape of a communal land allotment but also left s=
cope
for unlimited initiative and the opportunity of making a fortune in the pri=
vate
sector.
“Pestel believed=
that
his program had every chance of success since land ownership in Russia had
traditionally been both communal and private. Here he obviously had in mind=
the
Russian village commune; it should be emphasized, however, that Pestel̵=
7;s
commune differed essentially from the feudal obshchina in that it did
not restrict its members’ movement or personal freedom and did not im=
pose
collective responsibility for individual members’ tax liabilities.=
221;[380]
The Decembrist
rebellion was not as important for what it represented in itself as for the
halo of martyrdom which its exiles acquired, inspiring Herzen and other son=
s of
the gentry in their much more radical ideas and plans. The Decembrists were
romantic dreamers rather than hardened revolutionaries – one of their
leaders, the poet Ryleyev, mounted the scaffold with a volume of Byron̵=
7;s
works in his hands.[381] But
this did not diminish the evil effect their words and deeds had on the mind=
s of
succeeding generations. And the saints of Russia were severe in their
condemnation.
“They
say,” writes Platonov, “that in 1825, not long before the
Decembrist rebellion, a Mason, apparently Pestel, asked St. Seraphim for a
blessing. But he shouted angrily at him, as at the greatest criminal and
apostate from Christ: ‘Go where you came from,’ – and thr=
ew
him out.”[382]
579 people arres=
ted
and brought to trial. 40 were given the death sentence and the rest –
hard labour. In the end only five were executed. The soldiers were flogged.=
[383] On
August 21, 1826 Tsar Nicholas confirmed his predecessor’s ban on the
Masonic lodges…
“And so
V.F. Ivanov writ=
es:
“As an eyewitness put it, the rebellion in Petersburg shocked the gen=
eral
mass of the population of Russia profoundly. In his words, ‘the attem=
pt
to limit the Tsar’s power and change the form of government seemed to=
us
not only sacrilege, but an historical anomaly; while the people, seeing that
the plotters belonged exclusively to the upper class, considered the nobili=
ty
to be traitors, and this added one more sharp feature to that secret hatred
which it nourished towards the landowners. Only the progressives and the
intelligentsia of the capital sympathised with the unfortunate madmen’
(Schilder).
=
;
“The best =
people
turned away from the affair in disgust and branded the work of the
Mason-Decembrists that of Cain. In the words of Karamzin: ‘Look at the
stupid story of our mad liberalists! Pray God that not so many real rogues =
are
found among them. The soldiers were only victims of a deception. Sometimes a
fine day begins with a storm: may it be thus in the new reign… God sa=
ved
us from a great disaster on December 14…’”[385]
St.
Seraphim of Sarov
In 1844 Nicholas
Alexandrovich Motovilov, a nobleman of Simbirsk province and a close friend=
of
the greatest saint of the age, Seraphim of Sarov (+1833), made notes of his
conversations with the saint, which provide the best spiritual commentary on
the age. At the beginning of the twentieth century Sergius Alexandrovich Ni=
lus
found these notes and published them as follows:
“… A=
s a
demonstration of true zeal for God Batyushka Seraphim cited the holy Prophet
Elijah and Gideon, and for hours at a time he talked in an inspired manner
about them. Every judgement that he made about them was concluded by its
application to life, precisely our own life, and with an indication of how
we… can draw soul-saving instructions from their lives. He often spok=
e to
me about the holy King, Prophet and Ancestor of God David, at which point he
went into an extraordinary spiritual rapture. How one had to see him during
those unearthly minutes! His face, inspired by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
shone like the sun, and I – I speak the truth – on looking at h=
im felt
in my eyes as if I was looking at the sun. I involuntarily recalled the fac=
e of
Moses when he had just come down from Sinai. My soul, pacified, entered suc=
h a
quiet, and was filled with such great joy, that my heart was ready to embra=
ce
within itself not only the whole human race, but also the whole creation of
God, pouring out in love towards everything that is of God…
“’So=
, your
Godbelovedness, so,’ Batyushka used to say, leaping from joy (those w=
ho
still remember this holy elder will relate how he would sometimes be seen
leaping from joy), ‘”I have chosen David my servant, a man afte=
r My
own heart, who will do all My will”’…
“In explai=
ning
how good it was to serve the Tsar and how much his life should be held dear=
, he
gave as an example Abishai, David’s war-commander.
“’Once,’ said Batyushka Seraphim, ‘to satisfy
the thirst of David, he stole in to a spring in view of the enemy camp and =
got
water, and, in spite of a cloud of arrows released at him from the enemy ca=
mp,
returned to him completely unharmed, bringing the water in his helmet. He h=
ad
been saved from the cloud of arrows only because of his zeal towards the Ki=
ng.
But when David gave an order, Abishai replied: “Only command, O King,=
and
everything will be done in accordance with your will.” But when the K=
ing
expressed the desire to take part himself in some bloody deed to encourage =
his
warriors, Abishai besought him to preserve his health and, stopping him from
participating in the battle, said: “There are many of us, your Majest=
y,
but you are one among us. Even if all of us were killed, as long as you were
alive, Israel would be whole and unconquered. But if you are gone, then what
will become of Israel?”…’
“Baytushka=
Fr.
Seraphim loved to explain himself at length, praising the zeal and ardour of
faithful subjects to the Tsar, and desiring to explain more clearly how the=
se
two Christian virtues are pleasing to God, he said:
“’Af=
ter
Orthodoxy, these are our first Russian duty and the chief foundation of true
Christian piety.’
“Often from David he changed =
the
subject to our great Emperor [Nicholas I] and for hours at a time talked to=
me
about him and about the Russian kingdom, bewailing those who plotted evil
against his August Person. Clearly revealing to me what they wanted to do, =
he
led me into a state of horror; while speaking about the punishment prepared=
for
them from the Lord, and in confirmation of his words, he added:
“’Th=
is
will happen without fail: the Lord, seeing the impenitent spite of their
hearts, will permit their undertakings to come to pass for a short period, =
but
their illness will turn upon their heads, and the unrighteousness of their
destructive plots will descend upon them. The Russian land will be reddened
with streams of blood, and many noblemen will be killed for his great Majes=
ty
and the integrity of his Autocracy: but the Lord will not be wrath to the e=
nd,
and will not allow the Russian land to be destroyed to the end, because in =
it
alone will Orthodoxy and the remnants of Christian piety be especially
preserved.
“Once,R=
21; as
Motovilov continued in his notes, “I was in great sorrow, thinking wh=
at
would happened in the future with our Orthodox Church if the evil contempor=
ary
to us would be multiplied more and more. And being convinced that our Church
was in an extremely pitiful state both from the great amount of carnal
debauchery and… from the spiritual impiety of godless opinions sown
everywhere by the most recent false teachers, I very much wanted to know wh=
at
Batyushka Seraphim would tell me about this.
“Discussin=
g the
holy Prophet Elijah in detail, he said in reply to my question, among other
things, the following:
“’El=
ijah
the Thesbite complained to the Lord about Israel as if it had wholly bowed =
the
knee to Baal, and said in prayer that only he, Elijah, had remained faithfu=
l to
Lord, but now they were seeking his soul, too, to take it… So what,
batyushka, did the Lord reply to this? “I have left seven thousand me=
n in
Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So if in the kingdom of
Israel, which had fallen away from the kingdom of Judah that was faithful to
God, and had come to a state of complete corruption, there still remained s=
even
thousand men faithful to the Lord, then what shall we say about Russia? I t=
hink
that at that time there were no more than three million in the kingdom of
Israel at that time. And how many do we have in Russia now, batyushka?̵=
7;
“I replied:
‘About sixty million.’
“And he
continued: ‘Twenty times more. Judge for yourself how many more of th=
ose
faithful to God that brings!… So, batyushka, those whom He foreknew, =
He
also predestined; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those =
whom
He called, He guards, and those He also glorifies… So what is there f=
or
us to be despondent about!… God is with us! He who hopes in the Lord =
is
as Mount Sion, and the Lord is round about His people… The Lord will =
keep
you, the Lord will protect you on your right hand, the Lord will preserve y=
our
coming in and your going out now and to the ages; by day the sun will not b=
urn
you, nor the moon by night.’
“And when I
asked him what this meant, and to what end he was talking to me about it:
“’To=
the
end,’ replied Batyushka Fr. Seraphim, ‘that you should know tha=
t in
this way the Lord guards His people as the apple of His eye, that is, the
Orthodox Christians, who love Him and with all their heart, and all their m=
ind,
in word and deed, day and night serve Him. And such are those who completely
observe all the commandments, dogmas and traditions of our Eastern Universal
Church, and confess the piety handed down by it with their lips, and really=
, in
all the circumstances of life, act according to the holy commandments of our
Lord Jesus Christ.’
“In
confirmation of the fact that there were still many in the Russian land who
remained faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, who lived in Orthodoxy and piet=
y,
batyushka Fr. Seraphim once said to one acquaintance of mine – either=
Fr.
Gury, the former guest-master of Sarov, or Fr. Simeon, the owner of Maslins=
hensky
court, - that once, when he was in the Spirit, he saw the whole land of Rus=
sia,
and it was filled and as it were covered with the smoke of the prayers of
believers praying to the Lord…”[386]<=
/a>
St. Seraphim
prophetically foresaw that the revolutionary evil would continue to grow and
would lead in the end to the Russian revolution of 1917: "More than ha=
lf a
century will pass. Then evildoers will raise their heads high. This will ha=
ppen
without fail: the Lord, seeing the impenitent evil of their hearts, will al=
low
their enterprises for a short time. But their sickness will rebound upon th=
eir
own heads, and the unrighteousness of their destructive plots will fall upon
them. The Russian land will become red with rivers of blood... Before the b=
irth
of the Antichrist there will be a great, protracted war and a terrible
revolution in Russia passing all bounds of human imagination, for the
bloodletting will be most terrible: the rebellions of Ryazan, Pugachev and =
the
French revolution will be nothing in comparison with what will take place in
Russia. Many people who are faithful to the fatherland will perish, church
property and the monasteries will be robbed; the Lord's churches will be
desecrated; good rich people will be robbed and killed, rivers of Russian b=
lood
will flow..."[387]<=
/a>
Part II. LIBERALISM AND AUTOCRACY
(1830-1856)
3. THE WEST: THE DUAL REVOLUTION
The King rei=
gns,
but does not govern.
Adolphe Thie=
rs, Le
National, 4 February, 1830. &n=
bsp;
Come to me,
Lucifer, Satan, whoever you may be! Devil whom the faith of my fathers
contrasted with God and the Church. I will act as spokesman for you and will
demand nothing of you.
Proudhon,
The system worke= d, throughout Europe, with an extraordinary success and facilitated the growth= of wealth on an unprecedented scale. To save and to invest became at once the = duty and the delight of a large class. The savings were seldom drawn on, and accumulating at compound interest, made possible the material triumphs whic= h we now all take for granted. The morals, the politics, the literature and the religion of the age joined in a grand conspiracy for the promotion of savin= g. God and Mammon were reconciled. Peace on earth to men of good means. A rich= man could, after all, enter into the Kingdom of Heaven – if only he saved= .
John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Mon=
etary
Reform (1923).
At first sight t=
he
post-Napoleonic era appears to be an era of political reaction punctuated by
occasional revolutionary eruptions, as in 1830 and 1848 – which, howe=
ver,
did not succeed in overthrowing the major monarchical powers. This general
picture is misleading. Although the paroxysm of the first French revolution=
was
not repeated on the same scale before 1871, the revolution in ideas was
continuing apace. If Jacobinism remained confined to the underground,
liberalism – that English philosophy which dominated the first phase =
of
the French revolution – penetrated wider and deeper in all states. Al=
so
increasingly influential was that other product of the revolution –
nationalism, which became especially important in the later nineteenth cent=
ury.
And then there w=
as the
industrial revolution. The origins of the industrial revolution are =
to
be found in the English agrarian revolution of the eighteenth century. Its
essential features were the “privatisation” of the common land =
(in
England, the pioneer in both the agrarian and industrial revolutions, throu=
gh
the Enclosure Acts of 1760 to 1830), its more efficient capitalist exploita=
tion
by a new breed of capitalist landowners, creating a new surplus in food and
market in agricultural produce, and the destruction of the feudal bonds that
bound the peasant to the land that he worked and the landowner for whom he
worked. This led to the creation of a large number of landless agricultural
labourers who, in the absence of work in the countryside, sought it in the =
new
industrial enterprises that were being created in the towns to exploit a se=
ries
of important technological innovations.
The most important of these innovat=
ions
from a purely political point of view was the revolution in communications.
“The most famous demonstration,” writes Norman Davies, “of
the value of superior communication was staged on 19 June 1815, when Nathan
Rothschild made a record killing on the London stock market, having used a
special yacht to bring news of Waterloo many hours in advance of his
rivals.”[388]
But yachts were =
as
nothing compared to the new, machine-produced means of communication, such =
as
the electric telegraph (1835). And the impact of the explosion in newspaper
reading was so great that the Austrian Chancellor Metternich wondered
“whether society can exist along with the liberty of the press.”=
;[389]
Indeed, his secretary Friedrich Gentz wrote in 1819 to Adam Mueller: “=
;I
continue to defend the proposition: ‘In order that the press may not =
be
abused, nothing whatever shall be printed in the next… years.
Period.’ If this principle were to be applied as a binding rule, a ve=
ry
few rare exceptions being authorized by a very clearly superior Tribunal, we
should within a brief time find our way back to God and Truth.”[390] But
the press, it was discovered, could not muzzled. And so in the revolution of
1848, writes Eric Hobsbawm, “even the most arch-reactionary Prussian
junkers discovered… that they required a newspaper capable of influen=
cing
‘public opinion’ – in itself a concept linked with libera=
lism
and incompatible with traditional hierarchy.”[391]
As the poet Robe=
rt
Southey wrote: “The steam engine and the spinning engines, the mail c=
oach
and the free publication of the debates in parliament… Hence follow in
natural and necessary consequences increased activity, enterprise, wealth a=
nd
power; but on the other hand, greediness of gain, looseness of principle,
wretchedness, disaffection and political insecurity…”[392]=
The world as we = know it today is largely the product of this dual revolution – the liberal revolution and the industrial revolution - that took place in the central decades of the nineteenth century. Its main workship and demonstration hall= was Britain, where both liberalism and industrialism had been born in the eighteenth century. Not for nothing was it called the Victorian age after Britain’s queen…
The Bourbon
restoration in 1815 did not restore full absolutism – the idea of lib=
erty
had bitten too deep for that. While Louis XVIII’s powers were declare=
d to
rest on a divine mandate, a bicameral legislature on the English model was
established. And in 1821 the rights of citizens to freedom of religion and
thought were reaffirmed. Louis’s successor, Charles X attempted to tu=
rn
the clock back, and his coronation ceremony in Rheims in 1825 had all the
ceremonial of the ancien regime, including the medieval practice of
touching for scrofula.[393] Bu=
t he
was not popular, and in July, 1830, he was overthrown and a constitutional
monarch, Louis Philippe put in his place. Although the idea of liberty was =
back
in vogue, the major political powers of the Holy Alliance were determinedly
anti-libertarian. So liberty needed a new intellectual underpinning. Such a
support was found the concept of historical progress…
Mosse writes: &#=
8220;A
revival of history underlay the new concept of liberty in the post-Napoleon=
ic
generation. This revival had been foreshadowed by the Italian historian,
Giambattista Vico, who is his Scienza Nuova, the New Science
(1725), had confronted the rationalism of his age with a philosophy of hist=
ory.
Vico felt that history also worked according to natural laws, laws which
determined its movement which Vico took to be cyclical. Civilizations arose=
and
decayed, descending from the age of the gods to that of the heroic and on to
the human age and its subsequent decay. Vico’s cyclical theory of his=
tory
had little impact on his contemporaries. Much later, at the end of the
nineteenth century, Benedetto Croce refurbished Vico’s status as a
historian, and still later Oswald Spengler espoused, in part, his theories.
Nevertheless, to this post-Napoleonic generation, Vico displayed a philosop=
hy
of history governed by natural laws which moved through the engine of the h=
uman
spirit. Central to this spirit was a concept of liberty.
“What emer=
ged,
then, from Vico’s thought was a concept of liberty which worked as a
natural law in history and through history. ‘Everything is
history,’ the Neapolitan maintained, a remark Croce was fond of repea=
ting
later on. While accepting the primacy of the spirit in the human struggle f=
or
liberty, the adherents of the religion of liberty abandoned the cyclical rh=
ythm
of history in favor of a concept of progress based, as it was, on the
optimistic belief of the Enlightenment in the triumph of reason. Now, howev=
er,
this concept of progress was combined with an awareness of the importance of
historical development. Human progress developed through the laws of history
and not through the inevitable triumph of reason alone. A concept of liberty
was central to this human progress in the sense of liberty’s progress=
as
a part of man’s progress through history.
“But had l=
iberty
not led to the Terror, to Jacobin tyranny and, in the end, to Napoleon̵=
7;s
iron grip on Europe? Would liberty, even if conceived in historical terms, =
not
lead to new excesses? The adherents of this new liberty had to face this
problem. They believed in liberty but hated what Robespierre and Napoleon h=
ad
made out of this human longing. The emphasis on history helped here, for su=
ch
an emphasis precluded sudden innovations. They went one step further and
repudiated the revolutionary concept of democracy, a concept they felt led =
not
to liberty but to absolutism. They blamed Rousseau’s doctrine of the
general will and Robespierre’s use of it. Madame de Staël, in he=
r Considerations
upon the French Revolution (1816), spoke of the Revolution as a crisis =
in
the history of liberty. She contrasted ancient liberty, sanctified by histo=
ry,
to the modernity of despotism. Jacobin popular democracy was, for her, just
another form of tyranny; liberty had to be obtained in another way, a way
outlined by the French constitution of 1791 and the constitution of England
(for Madame de Staël admired the English constitution as did Montesqui=
eu
before her). ‘It is a beautiful sight this constitution, vacillating a
little as it sets out from its port, like a vessel launched at sea, yet
unfurling its sails, it gives full play to everything great and generous in=
the
human soul.’ Through such a constitution liberty unfolds within the
historical process. Liberty was all-important to this talented and famous
woman; she hated the Terror but she did not lay it at the doorstep of the
Revolution. The ancien regime had so corrupted the morals of the peo=
ple
that despotism, not liberty, had to be the outcome of their justified revol=
t.
She held to the oft-repeated view that the champions of reaction, not the
revolutionaries, were the ultimate causes of revolutions.”[394]
Her thesis appea=
red to
receive confirmation when the short period of reaction that began in France
under the absolutist monarchy of Charles X came to an end with the “J=
uly
Days” revolution of 1830, which introduced a constitutional monarchy
headed by another Bourbon, Louis-Philippe, the Duke of Orléans. At
almost the same time, in 1832, the British parliament passed the Reform Act,
which rationalized and extended the franchise, consolidating the role of the
middle class in government. With liberalism triumphant in these two countri=
es
(as also, of course, in the United States), the concept of liberty acquired=
a
second wind throughout Europe. Everybody could see that reaction was over a=
nd
liberalism was here to stay. Its progress might be checked temporarily; it
might be appeased for a time with concessions that fell short of the full
liberal programme. But even emperors, such as Napoleon III, would have to s=
eek
a popular mandate and pay at least nominal deference to constitutional idea=
ls.
And yet history =
was a
fickle thing. Could it not be cyclical, as Vico supposed? If it had brought
liberalism in on the crest of one wave, could it not bring monarchy and
autocracy back on another?…
Moreover, histor=
y to a
French liberal such as Madame de Staël or Benjamin Constant was someth=
ing
quite different from what it meant to the new wave of romantic philosophers
that were beginning to make their reputations across the Rhine – Hege=
l,
in particular. For these philosophers, history is not the work of free,
enlightened individuals, but a determined, impersonal process; not the hist=
ory
of liberty, but the incarnation of a force, or fate, that pays no attention=
to
individual hopes and fears - the individual’s freedom of choice is an
illusion based on ignorance.
The doctrine of =
historicism,
or historical inevitability, writes Sir Isaiah Berlin, “has taken
several forms. There are those who believe that moral judgements are ground=
less
because we know too much, and there are those who believe that they are
unjustified because we know too little. And again, among the former there a=
re
those whose determinism is pessimistic, or else confident of a happy ending=
yet
at the same time indignantly or sardonically malevolent. Some look to histo=
ry
for salvation; others for justice; for vengeance; for annihilation. Among t=
he
optimistic are the confident rationalists, in particular the heralds and
prophets (from Bacon to modern social theorists) of the natural sciences an=
d of
material progress, who maintain that vice and suffering are in the end alwa=
ys
the product of ignorance. The foundation of their faith is the conviction t=
hat
it is possible to find out what all men at all times truly want; and also w=
hat
they can do and what is for ever beyond their power; and, in the light of t=
his,
to invent, discover and adapt means to realisable ends. Weakness and misery,
folly and vice, moral and intellectual defects are due to maladjustment. To
understand the nature of things is (at the very least) to know what you (and
others who, if they are human, will be like you) truly want, and how to get=
it.
All that is bad is due to ignorance or ends or of means; to attain to knowl=
edge
of both is the purpose and function of the sciences. The sciences will adva=
nce;
true ends as well as efficient means will be discovered; knowledge will
increase, men will know more, and therefore be wiser and better and happier.
Condorcet, whose Esquisse is the simplest and most moving statement =
of
this belief, has no doubt that happiness, scientific knowledge, virtue and
liberty are bound as ‘by an indissoluble chain’, while stupidit=
y,
vice, injustice and unhappiness are forms of a disease which the advance of
science will eliminate for ever; for we are made what we are by natural cau=
ses;
and when we understand them, this alone will suffice to bring us into harmo=
ny
with ‘Nature’.
“Praise and blam= e are functions of ignorance; we are what we are, like stones and trees, like bees and beavers, and if it is irrational to blame or demand justice from things= or animals, climates or soils or wild beasts, when they cause us pain, it is no less irrational to blame the no less determined characters or acts of men. = We can regret – and deplore and expose – the depth of human cruelt= y, injustice and stupidity, and comfort ourselves with the certainty that with= the rapid progress of our new empirical knowledge this will soon pass away like= an evil dream; for progress and education, if not inevitable, are at any rate hightly probable. The belief in the possibility (or probability) of happine= ss as the product of rational organisation unites all the benevolent sages of modern times, from the metaphysicians of the Italian Renaissance to the evolutionary thinkers of the German Aufklärung, from the radica= ls and utilitarians of pre-revolutionary France to the science-worshipping visionaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is the heart of a= ll the Utopias from Bacon and Campanella to Lessing and Condorcet, Saint-Simon= and Cabet, Fourier and Owen, culminating in the bureaucratic fantasies of Augus= te Comte, with his fanatically tidy world of human beings joyfully engaged in fulfilling their functions, each within his own rigorously defined province= , in the rationally ordered, totally unalterable hierarchy of the perfect societ= y. These are the benevolent humanitarian prophets – our own age has known not a few of them, from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and Anatole France and Bernard Shaw to their unnumbered American disciples – generously disp= osed towards all mankind, genuinely seeking to rescue every living being from its burden of ignorance, sorrow, poverty and humiliating dependence on others.<= o:p>
“The other
variant of this attitude is a good deal less amiable in tone and in feeling.
When Hegel, and after him Marx, describe historical processes, they too ass=
ume
that human beings and their societies are part and parcel of a wider nature,
which Hegel regards as spiritual, and Marx as material, in character. Great
social forces are at work of which only the acutest and most gifted individ=
uals
are aware; the ordinary run of men are blind in varying degrees to that whi=
ch
truly shapes their lives, they worship fetishes and invent childish
mythologies, which they dignify with the title of views or theories in orde=
r to
explain the world in which they live. From time to time the real forces =
211;
impersonal and irresistible – which truly govern the world develop to=
a point
where a new historical advance is ‘due’. Then (as both Hegel and
Marx notoriously believed) the crucial moments of advance are reched; these
take the form of violent, cataclysmic leaps, destructive revolutions which,
often with fire and sword, establish a new order upon the ruins of the old.
Inevitably the foolish, obsolete, purblind, homemade philosophies of the
denizens of the old establishment are knocked over and swept away together =
with
their possessors.
“For Hegel=
, and
for a good many others, though by no means all, among the philosophers and
poets of the romantic movement, history is a perpetual struggle of vast
spiritual forces embodied now in institutions – Churches, races,
civilisations, empires, national States – now in individuals of more =
than
human stature – ‘world-historical figures’ – of bold
and ruthless genius, towering over, and contemptuous of, their puny
contemporaries. For Marx, the struggle is a fight between socially conditio=
ned,
organised groups – classes shaped by the struggle for subsistence and
survival and consequently for the control of power. There is a sardonic note
(inaudible only to their most benevolent and single-hearted followers) in t=
he
words of both these thinkers as they contemplate the discomfiture and
destruction of the philistines, the ordinary men and women caught in one of=
the
decisive moments of history Both Hegel and Marx conjure up an image of peac=
eful
and foolish human beings, largely unaware of the part they play in history,
building their homes, with touching hope and simplicity, upon the green slo=
pes
of what seems to them a peaceful mountainside, trusting in the permanence of
their particular way of life, their own economic, social and political orde=
r,
treating their own values as if they were eternal standards, living, workin=
g,
fighting without any awareness of the cosmic processes of which their lives=
are
but a passing stage. But the mountain is no ordinary mountain; it is a volc=
ano;
and when (as the philosopher always knew that it would) the inevitable erup=
tion
comes, their homes and their elaborately tended institutions and their idea=
ls
and their ways of life and values will be blown out of existence in the
cataclysm which marks the leap from the ‘lower’ to a
‘higher’ stage. When this point is reached, the two great proph=
ets
of destruction are in their element; they enter into their inheritance; they
survey the conflagration with a defiant, almost Byronic, irony and disdain.=
To
be wise is to understand the direction in which the world is inexorably mov=
ing,
to identify oneself with the rising power which ushers in the new world. Ma=
rx
– and it is part of his attraction to those of a similar emotional ca=
st
– identifies himself exultantly, in his way no less passionately than
Nietzsche or Bakunin, with the great force which in its very destructivenes=
s is
creative, and is greeted with bewilderment and horror only by those whose
values are hopelessly subjective, who listen to their consciences, their
feelings, or to what their nurses or teachers tell them, without realising =
the
glories of life in a world which moves from explosion to explostion to fulf=
il
the great cosmic design. When history takes her revenge – and every <=
u>enragé
prophet in the nineteenth century looks to her to avenge him against those =
he
hates most – the mean, pathetic, ludicrous stifling human anthills wi=
ll
be justly pulverised; justly, because what is just and unjust, good and bad=
, is
determined by the goal towards which all creation is tending. Whatever is on
the side of victorious reason is just and wise; whatever is on the other si=
de,
on the side of the world that is doomed to destruction by the working of the
forces of reason, is rightly called foolish, ignorant, subjective, arbitrar=
y,
blind; and, if it goes so far as to try to resist the forces that are desti=
ned
to supplant it, then it – that is to say, the fools and knaves and
mediocrities who constitute it – is rightly called retrograde, wicked,
obscurantist, perversely hostile to the deepest interests of mankind.
“Different though the tone of these forms of determinism may be – whether scientifice, humanitarian and optimistic or furious, apocalyptic and exulta= nt – they agree in this: that the world has a direction and is governed = by laws, and that the direction and the laws can in some degree be discovered = by employing the proper techniques of investigation; and moreover that the wor= king of these laws can only be grasped by those who realise that the lives, characters and acts of individuals, both mental and physical, are governed = by the large ‘wholes’ to which they belong, and that it is the independent evolution of these ‘wholes’ that constitutes the so-called ‘forces’ in terms of whose direction truly ‘scientific’ (or ‘philosophic’) history must be formulated. To find the explanation of why given individuals, or groups of them, act or think or feel in one way rather than another, one must first s= eek to understand the structure, the state of development and the direction of = such ‘wholes’, for example, the social, economic, political, religio= us institutions to which such individuals belong; once that is known, the behaviour of the individuals (or the most characteristic among them) should become almost logically deducible, and does not constitute a separate problem. Ideas about the identity of these large entities or forces, and their functions, differ from theorist to theorist. Race, colour, Church, nation, class; climate, irrigation, technology, geopolitical situation; civilisation, social struct= ure, the Human Spirit, the Collective Unconscious, to take some of these concept= s at random, have all played their parts in theologico-historical systems as the protagonists upon the stage of history. They are represented as the real fo= rces of which individuals are ingredients, at once constitutive, and the most articulate expressions, of this or that phase of them. Those who are more clearly and deeply aware than others of the part which they play, whether willingly or not, to that degree play it more boldly and effectively; these= are the natural leaders. Others, led by their own petty personal concerns into ignoring or forgetting that they are parts of a continuous or convulsive pattern of change, are deluded into assuming that (or, at any rate, into ac= ting as if) they and their fellows are stabilised at some fixed level for ever.<= o:p>
“What the variants of either of these attitudes entail, like all forms of genuine determinism, is the elimination of the notion of individual responsibility.= It is, after all, natural enough for men, whether for practical reasons or bec= ause they are given to reflection, to ask who or what is responsible for this or that state of affairs which they view with satisfaction or anxiety, enthusi= asm or horror. If the history of the world is due to the operation of identifia= ble forces other than, and little affected by, free human wills and free choices (whether these occur or not), then the proper explanation of what happens m= ust be given in terms of the evolution of such forces. And there is then a tend= ency to say that not individuals, but these larger entities, are ultimately ‘responsible’. I live at a particular moment of time in the spiritual and social and economic circumstances into which I have been cast: how then can I help choosing and acting as I do? The values in terms of whi= ch I conduct my life are the values of my class, or race, or Church, or civilisation, or are part and parcel of my ‘station’ – my position in the ‘social structure’. Nobody denies that it would= be stupid as well as cruel to blame me for not being taller than I am, or to regard the colour of my hair or the qualities of my intellect or heart as b= eing due principally to my own free choice; these attributes are as they are thr= ough no decision of mine. If I extend this category without limit, then whatever= it is, is necessary and inevitable. This unlimited extension of necessity, on any = of the view described above, becomes intrinsic to the explanation of everythin= g. To blame and praise, consider possible alternative courses of action, accus= e or defend historical figures for acting as they do or did, becomes an absurd activity. Admiration and contempt for this or that individual may indeed continue, but it becomes aking to aesthetic judgement. We can eulogise or deplore, feel love or hatred, satisfaction of shame, but we can neither bla= me nor justify. Alexander, Caesar, Attila, Muhammed, Cromwell, Hitler are like floods and earthquakes, sunsets, oceans, mountains; we may admire or fear t= hem, welcome or curse them, but to denounce or extol their acts is (ultimately) = as sensible as addressing sermons to a tree (as Frederick the Great pointed out with his customary pungency in the course of his attack on Holbach’s = System of Nature)…”[395]
We shall return =
to a
more detailed study of both these kinds of historical determinism - the
optimistic and the pessimistic, the Anglo-French and the German. But first =
let
us examine the phenomenon we noted in the first chapter: the union of
revolutionary sentiment and romanticism.
The Enlightenmen=
t had
undermined faith and religion, substituting for them reaso=
n
and science. The Counter-Enlightenment, convinced of the narrowness =
and
superficiality of these, put forward imagination and art inst=
ead.
The artist was now prophet and priest; and since artistic imagination was t=
he
path to all truth, it was the path to political truth also. And political
action, too; for the Romantics insisted on the unity of mind and heart, fee=
ling
and action. For, as William Blake put it as early as 1793, “Energy is=
the
only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward
circumference of Energy.”[396]
And so Romantic =
art
became identified with the revolution.[397] We=
see
the tendency for art to become the mouthpiece of the revolution as early as
that paragon of classicism – Mozart. In his opera The Marriage of
Figaro, which avoided the censorship that had banned Beaumarchais’
play of the same name, a distinct strand of anti-aristocratic rebelliousnes=
s is
given vigorous expression – although masters and servants are touchin=
gly
united in the final chorus. Again, in Don Giovanni, while the
Don’s words Viva la liberta! celebrated sexual rather t=
han
political revolution (the two invariably go together), the censors, fearing
that word liberta!, still demanded that he sing Viva la societa!<=
/u>
instead.[398]
Finally, The Magic Flute, composed in 1791, celebrated that Masonic
society that was the heart of the revolution.
The French revol=
ution
was almost unanimously acclaimed by poets and philosophers. Wordsworth excl=
aimed
what bliss it was to be alive at the dawn of the revolution, and Byron and
Shelley considered it their duty as poets to join the revolution.
Painters such as David chose revolutionaries as their subjects, and invaria=
bly
portrayed the object of their revolutionary desires, liberty, as a half-nak=
ed
young woman (the link between political rebellion and sexual lust has always
been close).
It was the same =
with
instrumental music. In 1803, Beethoven devoted the first great work of roma=
ntic
music, the Eroica symphony, to the god of the early revolution,
Napoleon, only to scratch out the dedication when he found that his idol had
feet of clay. Somewhat later, Berlioz, Liszt and Chopin were all close to t=
he
revolutionary movement…
The artist who m=
ost
clearly linked art and the revolution in the early nineteenth century was L=
ord
Byron. It was not simply that Byron died, as we have seen, in the cause of =
the
Greek revolution: his poetry expressed a cynical, disillusioned,
anti-establishment and anti-Christian, and yet still vaguely idealistic mood
that swept Europe in the wake of the failure of the first French revolution.
Indeed, “Byronism” represented a whole phase in European
sensibility.
Dostoyevsk= y had a highly questionable, but, as always, illuminating point of view on Byroni= sm. “First of all,” he wrote, “one shouldn’t use the wo= rd ‘Byronist’ as an invective. Byronism, though a momentary phenomenon, was a great, sacred and necessary one in the life of European mankind and, perhaps, in that of the entire human race. Byronism appeared a= t a moment of dreadful anguish, disillusionment and almost despair among men. Following the ecstatic transports of the new creed in the new ideals procla= imed at the end of the last century in France, then the most progressive nation = of European mankind, the outcome was very different from what had been expecte= d; this so deceived the faith of man that there has never perhaps been a sadder moment in the history of Western Europe. The new idols – raised for o= ne moment only – fell not only as a result of external (political) cause= s, but because of their intrinsic bankruptcy – which was clearly perceiv= ed by the sagacious hearts and the progressive minds. The new outcome w= as not yet in sight; the new valve was not yet revealed, and everybody was suffocating under the weight of a former world, which drew and narrowed its= elf down over mankind in a most dreadful manner. The old idols lay shattered.
“It was at= this very moment that a great and mighty genius, a passionate poet appeared. In = his melodies there sounded mankind’s anguish of those days, its gloomy disillusionment in its mission and in the ideals which had deceived it. It = was a novel, then unheard-of muse of vengeance and sorrow, malediction and desp= air. The spirit of Byronism, as it were, swept mankind as a whole, and everything responded to it. It was precisely as if a valve had been opened: at least, amidst the universal and dull groans – mostly unconscious – this was a mighty outcry in which all the cries and moans of mankind combined and merged in one chord. How could it not have been felt in Russia and particul= arly by so great, ingenious and leading a mind as that of Pushkin? – In th= ose days also, in Russia no strong mind, no magnanimous heart could have evaded Byronism. And not only because of compassion from afar for Europe and Europ= ean mankind, but because precisely at that time in Russia, too, there arose a g= reat many unsolved and tormenting questions, a great many old disillusionments…”[399]
While agreeing w= ith Dostoyevsky’s account of the origins of Byronism and its significance= , we may doubt whether it was “great, sacred and necessary”; nor was every magnanimous heart in Europe touched by Byron’s demonic genius. = For demonic is certainly what it was. His unfettered will defied both the impediment of his deformed foot, which he saw “as the mark of satanic connection”[400], a= nd all the laws of morality, of which the end, for a Christian, could only be hell…
This was the hel= l he himself described in “The Giaour”:
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like Scorpion girt with by fir=
e;
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven=
,
Unfit for earth, undoom’d for he=
aven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death!
Art
and Revolution: (2) The July Days
As the example of Byron suggest, the link between Romantic art and the revolution was deep. L= et us explore this link…
Artistic imagina= tion in the Romantic sense was much more than the ability to fantasise, to form = an image of that which did not exist. Jacques Barzun writes: “Out of the known or knowable, Imagination connects the remote, interprets the familiar= , or discovers hidden realities. Being a means of discovery, it must be called ‘Imagination of the real’. Scientific hypotheses perform that s= ame office; they are products of imagination.
“This view=
of
the matter explains why to the Romanticists the arts no longer figured as a
refined pleasure of the senses, an ornament of civilized existence, but as =
one
form of the deepest possible reflection on life. Shelley, defending his art,
declares poets to be the ‘unacknowledged legislators of the worldR=
17;.
The arts convey truths; they are imagination crystallized; and as they
transport the soul they reshape the perceptions and possibly the life of the
beholder. To perform this feat requires genius, because it is not a mechani=
cal
act. To be sure, all art makes use of conventions, but to obey traditional
rules and follow set patterns will not achieve that fusion of idea and form=
which
is properly creation. It was Romanticist discussion that made the word c=
reation
regularly apply to works of art…
“Those
Romanticist words, recharged with meaning, helped to establish the religion=
of
art. That faith served those who could and those could not partake of the
revived creeds. To call the passion for art a religion is not a figure of
speech or a way of praise. Since the beginning of the 19C, art has been def=
ined
again and again by its devotees as ‘the highest spiritual expression =
of
man’. The dictum leaves no room for anything higher and this highest
level is that which, for other human beings, is occupied by religion. To 19C
worshippers the arts form a treasury of revelations, a body of scriptures, =
the
makers of this spiritual testament are prophets and seers. And to this day =
the
fortunate among them are treated as demigods…”[401]
The word
“creation” was understood by the Romantics in almost a literal
sense, as the activity of the Word of God creating something out of nothing.
This meant, however, that Romantic art was not only a path to truth: it =
created
its own truth. But since truth is not created by man, but revealed t=
o him
by God, this can only mean that Romantic “creationism” was demo=
nic
in origin.
Thus, as Sir Isa=
iah
Berlin writes, “whatever the differences between the leading romantic
thinkers – the early Schiller and the later Fichte, Schelling and Jac=
obi,
Tieck and the Schlegels when they were young, Chateaubriand and Byron,
Coleridge and Carlyle, Kierkegaard, Stirner, Nietzsche, Baudelaire –
there runs through their writings a common notion, held with varying degree=
s of
consciousness and depth, that truth is not an objective structure, independ=
ent
of those who seek it, the hidden treasure waiting to be found, but is itsel=
f in
all its guises created by the seeker. It is not to be brought into being
necessarily by the finite individual: according to some it is created by a
greater power, a universal spirit, personal or impersonal, in which the
individual is an element, or of which he is an aspect, an emanation, an
imperfect reflection. But the common assumption of the romantics runs count=
er
to the philosophia perennis is that the answers to the great questio=
ns
are not to be discovered so much as to be invented. They are not something
found, they are something literally made. In its extreme Idealistic form it=
is
a vision of the entire world. In its more familiar conduct – aestheti=
cs,
religious, social, moral, political – a realm seen not as a natural or
supernatural order capable of being investigated, described and explained by
the appropriate method – rational examination or some more mysterious
procedure – but as something that man creates, as he creates works of
art; not by imitating, or even obtaining illumination from, pre-existent mo=
dels
or truths, or by applying pre-existent truths that are objective universal,
eternal unalterabl; but by an act of creation, the introduction into the wo=
rld
of something literally novel – the unique expression of an individual=
and
therefore unique creative activity, natural or supernatural, human or in pa=
rt
divine, owing nothing to anything outside it (in some versions because noth=
ing
can be conceived as being outside it), self-subsistent, self-justified,
self-fulfilling. Hence that new emphasis on the subjective and ideal rather
than the objective and the real, on the process of creation rather than its
effects, on motives rather than consequences; and, as a necessary corollary=
of
this, on the quality of the vision, the state of mind or soul of the acting
agent – purity of heart, innocence of intention, sincerity of purpose
rather than getting the answer right, that is, accurate correspondence to t=
he
‘given’. Hence the emphasis on activity, movement that cannot be
reduced to static segments, the flow that cannot be arrested, frozen, analy=
sed
without being thereby fatally distorted; hence the constant protest against=
the
reduction of ‘life’ to dead fragments, of organism to
‘mere’ mechanical or uniform units; and the corresponding tende=
ncy
towards similes and metaphors drawn from ‘dynamic’ sciences =
211;
biology, physiology, introspective psychology – and the worship of mu=
sic,
which, of all the arts, appears to have the least relation to universally
observable, uniform natural order. Hence, too, celebration of all forms of
defiance directed against the ‘given’ – the impersonal, t=
he
‘brute fact’ in morals or in politics – or against the st=
atic
and the accepted, and the value placed on minorities and martyrs as such, no
matter what the ideal for which they suffer.”[402]
By virtue of this
common desire to defy the “given”, the identification of the
revolution with romantic art, as Adam Zamoyski notes, was almost complete.
“’People and poets are marching together,’ wrote the Fren=
ch
critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve in 1830. ‘Art is henceforth on a
popular footing, in the arena with the masses.’ There was something in
this. Never before or since had poetry been so widely and so urgently read,=
so
taken to heart and so closely studied for hidden meaning. And it was not on=
ly
in search of aesthetic or emotional uplift that people did so, for the poet=
had
assumed a new role over the past two decades. Art was no longer an amenity =
but
a great truth that had to be revealed to mankind, and the artist was one wh=
o had
been called to interpret this truth, a kind of seer. In Russia, Pushkin
solemnly declared the poet’s status as a prophet uttering the burning
words of truth. The American Ralph Waldo Emerson saw poets as ‘libera=
ting
gods’ because they had achieved freedom themselves, and could therefo=
re
free others. The pianist and composer Franz Liszt wanted to rcapture the
‘political, philosophical and religious power’ that he believed
music had in ancient times. William Blake claimed that Jesus and his discip=
les
were all artists, and that he himself was following Jesus through his art.
‘God was, perhaps only the first poet of the universe,’
Théophile Gauthier reflected.[403] By=
the
1820s artists regularly referred to their craft as a religion, and Victor H=
ugo
represented himself alternately as Zoroaster, Moses and Christ, somewhere
between prophet and God.”[404]
Of all the art-f=
orms
the one having the most direct revolutionary impact, combining as it did
poetry, theatre, visual art and music, was opera. Daniel Auber’s L=
a Muette
de Portici, had a revolutionary subject, a tenor playing the part of the
revolutionary dressed in open shirt, tricolor pantaloons and a red Phrygian=
cap
and singing a refrain ‘Amour sacré de la Patrie’ =
which
contained a phrase out of the Marseillaise. It brought the house dow=
n,
becoming, in spite of the censors’ best efforts, a symbol of subversi=
on
and a sign pointing to what was to come in the revolutionary year of 1830.[405]
“The first=
night
of Victor Hugo’s play Hernani, on 25 February 1830, set the to=
ne
for the new year. The play, which is about an outlaw struggling for love and
liberation against fate and the Habsburg establishment, nicely encapsulated=
all
the most fashionable themes. Its form also broke all the artistic conventio=
ns,
and in the preface Hugo declared that the Romantic style was no more or less
than liberalism in the arts. The theatre was the scene of a pitched battle
between classicists and Romantics, an artistic dress rehearsal for what was=
to
come in the political sphere.
=
;
“The inept=
itude
of the opposition under the Restoration had given the Bourbons the impressi=
on
that they were firmly in the saddle. Louis XVIII died peacefully in 1824 and
was uneventfully succeeded by his brother, the Comte d’Artois, as Cha=
rles
X. He began turning back the clock as soon as he ascended the throne, insis=
ting
on having himself crowned at Rheims in May 1825 with the full ceremonial of
tradition. Meaning to strengthen the throne’s position further, Charl=
es X
strove to undermine the principles of the Charte that had been the
foundation of the Restoration. An economic depression in the years 1826-7
provoked unrest in various parts, and in November 1827 there was a rising in
Paris. But the feelings that led to it were diffuse and vague. Among the yo=
ung
men on the barricades was Auguste Blanqui, who confessed to not knowing exa=
ctly
what he was fighting for, even though this was to be the beginning of a long
life dedicated to revolt. The rising was quickly quashed, but the emotions =
that
underlay it were not so easily dealt with.
“These had=
no
leader to coalesce around, aside from the largely symbolic figure of Lafaye=
tte.
He had been associated with every conspiracy since 1815, but did not lead a=
ny
of them. Although he took pride in his revolutionary credentials and could =
not
resist young enthusiasts, he had grown more practical with age and was now
keener on constitutional reform. He nevertheless remained the most respected
figure in French public life. His American trip of 1824 had enhanced his st=
anding,
and his agitation for the Greek cause had given him an opportunity to fly t=
he
flag of liberty. He was recognized as representing all that was finest in
French political culture.
“Frustrate=
d by
the Chamber of Deputies, Charles X decided to dissolve it and call an elect=
ion
in March 1830. This yielded an increased opposition. The king set his mind =
on a
show of strength and on 26 July announced a set of emergency ordonnances=
,
abrogating press freedom, dissolving the newly-elected Chamber and limiting=
the
franchise for the next election. The following day barricades began to go up
and people started looting gunsmiths’ shops. The situation was serious
but not critical, as the protesters had no leaders, no plan, and no particu=
lar
idea of what they wanted. Nor were they representatives of the population at
large. The former Napoleonic marshal Marmont was in command of the 10,000
troops in the capital, and he should have been able to prevent the rising f=
rom
gaining ground, but he received conflicting orders. The king intended to ri=
de
the stron but then changed his mind, by which time it was too late. After t=
wo
days of confused fighting, Marmont’s troops began to go over to the o=
ther
side. By 29 July most of Paris was controlled by the insurgents, and the
municipal committee in the Hôtel de Ville was behaving like a provisi=
onal
government. Charles X fled abroad, as he had done on 16 July 1789.
“The risin=
g,
unplanned and undirected, was motivated by a spectrum of grievances and
desires, but frustration of one sort or another was probably the dominant m=
otor
during its three-day duration, which came to be called ‘Les Trois
Glorieuses’. Some of the insurgents wer poor and hungry, but pove=
rty
and hunger were noticeably absent from the slogans and banners. The most
commonly heard shout was ‘Vive la liberté!’, but =
its
meaning depended very much on who was doing the shouting. There were those =
who
wanted constitutional change, but most would have been hard put to it to de=
fine
their demands. The cry of ‘Smash the Romantics!’ was more in
evidence than any calls for bread or better working conditions.
“The Roman=
tics
were out in force. Alexandre Dumas manned a barricade with the painter Paul
Huet, a former Carbonaro. Franz Liszt was caught up in the excitement
and roamed the streets encouraging the insurgents and meditating a
Revolutionary Symphony. Stendhal stayed at home during the three days,
engrossed in Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, that
bible of the cult of Napoleon. Dumas, who was helping to build a barricade =
on
the Place de l’Odéon on the second day of the revolt, witnesse=
d a
scene that fully justified Stendhal’s studies. As he and his companio=
ns
toiled away, tearing up paving-stones and heaving furniture on to the
barricade, the owner of a nearby riding-school rode up on a white horse, in=
a
tightly buttoned coat and a black tricorn hat, and came to a halt, with one
hand held behind his back. The resemblance to Napoleon was so striking that=
the
whole crowd began to shout: ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ An =
old
woman fell to her knees, made the sign of the cross, and cried out: ‘=
Oh!
Jesus! that I should have been allowed to see him before I die!…̵=
7;
“In the mo=
ral
confusion, it was symbols and shibboleths that carried the day. Foremost am=
ong
these was the Marseillaise. It was on the lips of the first confused
crowds as they began to build their barricades, and the sound electrified t=
he
capital. When the tenor Nourrit sang it on the stage of the Opéra, a
religious silence fell, and some went down on their knees. By popular deman=
d,
Nourrit would mount the stage in full National Guard uniform every evening =
for
the next three months to sin the sacred hymn, holding a tricolor flag. For =
the
composer Hector Berlioz, the hymn provided one of the great musical experie=
nces
of his life. He had been writing an orchestral cantata for the competition =
of
the Institut de France when the revolution began. All through 28 July he wo=
rked
feverishly at the score in the Palais Mazarin, while bullets and cannon-bal=
ls
thudded against the walls and pattered over the roof. The following day, ha=
ving
finished the piece, he got hold of a pistol and joined ‘the holly
rabble’ on the streets. At one point he came across a group of young =
men
singing rousing battle-songs. A crowd gathered, and when Berlioz and the
singers wanted to leave, they were pursued by thousands of frantic admirers.
They were finally cornered in a cul-de-sac, and had no option but to contin=
ue
singing. They ascended to a first-floor room and opened the windows so that
they could be seen and heard by the crowd. They intoned the Marseillaise=
.
‘Almost at once the seething mass at our feet grew quiet and a holy
stillness fell upon them,’ recalls Berlioz. When it came to the choru=
s of
‘Aux armes, citoyens!’ the multitude of men, women and
children, ‘hot from the barricades, their pulses still throbbing with=
the
excitement of the recent struggle’, gave voice, and Berlioz sank to t=
he
floor, overcome with emotion.
“The other
defining symbol of Les Trois Glorieuses was the tricolor, also banne=
d in
1814. Dumas was crossing a bridge on 28 July when he suddenly saw it flying
over Notre Dame. ‘I leaned over the parapet, my arms outstretched, my
eyes fixed and bathed in tears.’ And it was the tricolor that was to
decide the outcome of the revolution. The instincts driving the insurgents =
on
to the barricades, and those that made the royal troops waver and then go o=
ver
to the other side, were emotional and spiritual rather than political. Those
July days were not born of any deep sense of injustice and they wer not abo=
ut
bringing in a new social order. They were a rejection of the Bourbon
restoration and an attempt to regain the spirit of 1789. They were a
reaffirmation of the primacy of the nation, which had been ignored and insu=
lted
by the Bourbons.
“On 29 Jul= y, when the fighting was pretty well over, Lafayette set out for the Hôt= el de Ville, cheered by the population. He was the one man everyone could fall= in behind. But he was not the man who could wield power. No one understood this better than the only member of the French royal family still in Paris, the = Duc d’Orléans. Louis Philippe d’Orléans had been crafting his image carefully, gradually manoeuvring himself into the positi= on of being both the acceptable face of royalty and the representative of the spirit of 1792. He cultivated artists and heaped patronage and flattery on popular writers, who served him well. In 1824 he sponsored a great exhibiti= on of contemporary French painting at the Palais-Royal, which, incidentally, featured two great canvases by Vernet depicting him at Valmy and Jemappes.<= o:p>
“The duke =
kept
out of sight during the July Days, using Béranger and Ary Scheffer to
put forward his name and sound out opinion on his behalf. He had the suppor=
t of
many constitutional liberals, and of what might be described as the business
interest. As soon as it became apparent that the cause of Charles X was dea=
d,
people opposed to a republic began to look to Orléans as the lesser =
of
two evils. It was only than that he sidled into the limelight. On 20 July a
delegation from the moderates to the Chamber of Deputies invited Orlé=
;ans
to become ‘Lieutenant of the Kingdom’ and the following day he =
went
to the Hôtel de Ville, where Lafayetter was doing his best to contain=
the
more radical elements.
“As
Orléans stood on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville with
Lafayetter, facing a sullen crowd, he had the brilliant idea of seizing a h=
uge
tricolor flag and brandishing it while he embraced the general. Its folds
framed the figures of Lafayette and the duke, brushing their faces, and the
crowd erupted into a frenzy of enthusiastic applause. Orléans was the
hero of the hour, and a couple of days later he had been acclaimed Louis
Philippe, King of the French. It was his reward for intelligent observation=
. He
knew the power of the tricolor and its importance for ordinary Frenchmen. W=
hen
an officer serving with the French forces in Algeria gave his soldiers the =
news
of Les Trois Glorieuses, explaining that the hated Bourbons had fall=
en,
and that their new king was a constitutional monarch who had fought at Valm=
y,
they were unmoved. ‘It was only when they learned that the tricolor h=
ad
replaced the white standard that these good men gave vent to their joy,R=
17;
he writes.
“Joy was t=
he
prevalent emotion in France at the end of July 1830. ‘As soon as the =
heat
of combat had died down,’ noted the legitimist Comtess de Boigne on 29
July, ‘it became a city of brothers.’ The poor were still poor,=
the
hungry still hungry, but they had been given back their dreams…
“This joy =
at the
new dawn was not confined to France. Just as in 1789, a shudder of exciteme=
nt
ran through the Western world. ‘It roused my utmost enthusiasm, and g=
ave
me, as it were, a new existence,’ wrote John Stuart Mill, then
twenty-four, who hastened to Paris, where he gazed rapt on Lafayette and ot=
her
heroes of the July days. Heinrich Heine, though older, reacted with lyricis=
m to
‘the thick packet of newspapers with the warm, glowing-hot news’=
;.
‘Each item was a sunbeam, wrapped in printed paper, and together they
enkindled my soul with a wild glow… Lafayette, the tricolor, the
Marseillaise – it intoxicates me. Bold, ardent hopes spring up, like
trees with gold fruit and branches that shoot up wildly till their leaves t=
ouch
the clouds.’
“And there was th=
e same
quasi-religious reverence surrounding what had happened. A Belgian radical =
who
was in Germany at the end of July recorded a scene in a Karlsruhe inn.
‘We saw a group of Baden officers, sitting together at the table
d’hôte, rise up suddenly in a respectful silence when one of th=
em,
opening a letter sent to him from Strasbourg let a tricolor cockade drop ou=
t of
the envelope. In an attempt to stop the spread of the infection, several Ge=
rman
governments prohibited performances of operas such as La Muette de Porti=
ci and
Guilleaume Tell. They knew what they were doing: a performance of on=
e of
them was responsible for launching an insurrection that created a nation wh=
ere
people had least expected it – in Belgium…”[406]
Inspired though = they were by the poets, the revolutions of 1830 soon settled down into prosaic mediocrity. The difference between the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 consist= ed in the latter’s concentration on broadening electoral suffrage and in= its more openly commercial flavour, in keeping with the new spirit of commercial enterprise. “Master of everything,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville= of France in the 1840s, “as no aristocracy had ever been or perhaps will never be, the middle class, which one has to call the governing class, havi= ng entrenched itself in power and soon afterwards in its self-interest, seemed like a private industry. Each of its members scarcely gave a thought to pub= lic affairs except to make them function to profit his own private business, and had no difficulty in forgetting the lower orders in his little cocoon of affluence. Posterity… will possibly never realize how far the governm= ent of the day had in the end taken on the appearance of an industrial company, where all operations are carried out with a view to the benefit the shareholders can draw from them.”[407]<= o:p>
The
Polish Question
Encouraged by the
Tsar’s non-intervention in the French and Belgian revolutions, the Po=
les
rose against Tsarist authority in November, 1830. But this time the Tsar did
act. As he wrote to his brother, who ruled the Polish Kingdom: “It is=
our
duty to think of our security. When I say ours, I mean the tranquill=
ity
of Europe.”[408]<=
/a>
And so the rebellion was crushed. Europe was saved again – and was ag=
ain
uncomprehending and ungrateful.
Although it fail=
ed,
the Polish rebellion gave further support to the idea of a close, symbiotic
link between the revolution and art, as well as bringing to birth perhaps t=
he
most idiosyncratic, powerful and long-lasting variety of the cult of the na=
tion.
The 55,000 Polish
troops and 6,000 civilians who made a great exodus to the West and Paris ke=
pt
this cult alive, not in Polish hearts only, but throughout Europe. Only the
Russians were not seduced by its masochistic charm.
Protopriest Lev =
Lebedev writes: “The
revolutions of 1830 in France and Belgium gave an impulse to the Masonic
movement in Poland. It had two basic tendencies – an extreme republic=
an
one (headed by the historian Lelevel) and a more moderate aristocratic one =
(headed
by A. Chartoysky). At the end of 1830 there began a rebellion in Warsaw. Gr=
eat
Prince Constantine Pavlovich with a detachment of Russian soldiers was forc=
ed
to abandon Poland. In 1831 there came there the armies of General Dibich, w=
hich
had no significant success, in particular by reason of a very strong outbre=
ak
of cholear, from which both Dibich and Great Prince Constantine died. Meanw=
hile
the revolutionaries in Warsaw created first a ‘Provisional
government’ with a ‘dictator’ at its head, and then conve=
ned
the Sejm. The rebels demanded first the complete independence of Poland with
the addition to it of Lithuania and western Rus’, and then declared t=
he
‘deposition’ of the Romanov dynasty from the throne of the King=
dom
of Poland. Count Paskevich of Erevan was sent to Poland. He took Warsaw by
storm and completely destroyed the Masonic revolutionary armies, forcing th=
eir
remnants abroad [where they played a significant role in the revolutionary
movement in Western Europe]. Poland was divided into provinces and complete=
ly
included into the composition of the Russian Empire. The language of busine=
ss
was declared to be Russian. Russian landowners received land in Poland. A
Deputy was now placed at the head of the Kingdom of Poland. He became Paske=
vich
with the new title of Prince of Warsaw. In connection with all this it beca=
me
clear that the Polish magnates and landowners who had kept their land-holdi=
ngs
in Belorussia and Ukraine had already for some time been persecuting the
Orthodox Russians and Little Russians and also the uniates, and had been
occupied in polonizing education in general the whole cultural life in these
lands. Tsar Nicholas I was forced to take severe measures to restore Russian
enlightenment and education in the West Russian and Ukrainian land. In part=
icular,
a Russian university was opened in Kiev. The part of the Belorussian and
Ukrainian population headed by Bishop Joseph Semashko which had been in a
forcible unia with the Catholic Church since the end of the 16th
century desired reunion with Orthodoxy. Nicholas I decided to satisfy this
desire and in 1839 all the uniates (besides the inhabitants of Kholm dioces=
e)
were united to ‘to the ancestral Orthodox All-Russian Church’, =
as
they put it. This was a great feast of Orthodoxy! Masses of uniates were un=
ited
voluntarily, without any compulsion. All this showed that Russia had
subdued and humbled Poland not because she wished to lord it over her, and
resist her independence, but only because Poland wanted to lord it (=
both
politically and spiritually) over the ages-old Russian population,
depriving it of its own life and ‘ancestral’ faith! With suc=
h a
Poland as she was then striving to be, there was nothing to be done but
completely subdue her and force her to respect the rights of other
peoples! But to the Polish Catholics Russia provided, as usual, every
opportunity of living in accordance with their faith and customs.”[409]
Unfortunately, t=
he
Poles and the West did not see it like that. Thus the composer Frederick Ch=
opin
wrote: “The suburbs [of Warsaw] are destroyed, burned… Moscow r=
ules
the world! O God, do You exist? You’re there and You don’t aven=
ge
it. How many more Russian crimes do You want – or – are You a
Russian too!!?”[410]
Another artist w=
ho
gave expression to the new Polish faith was the poet Mickiewicz. “Pol=
and
will arise,” he wrote, “and free nations of Europe from bondage=
. Ibi
patria, ubi male;
wherever in Europe liberty is suppressed and is fought for, there is the ba=
ttle
for your country.”[411] Ad=
am
Zamoyski writes that Mickiewicz turned “the spiritual fantasies of a
handful of soldiers and intellectuals into the articles of faith that built=
a
modern nation.
“Mickiewic=
z had
established his reputation as Poland’s foremost lyric poet in the 182=
0s,
and enhanced his political credentials by his exile in Russia, where he met
several prominent Decembrists and grew close to Pushkin [who, however, did =
not
sympathize with his views on Poland]. In 1829 Mickiewicz received permissio=
n to
go to Germany to take the waters. He met Mendelssohn and Hegel in Berlin,
Metternich in Marienbad, and August Schlegel in Bonn, and attended
Goethe’s eightieth birthday party in Weimar. Goethe kissed him on the
forehead, gave him the quill with which he had worked on Faust, and
commissioned a portrait of him for his collection. Mickiewicz then went to
Italy where, apart from a de rigueur trip to Switzerland (Chillon and Altdo=
rf,
with Byron and Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell in his hand), he spent the next
year-and-half. It was in Rome that news of the November Rising [in Warsaw]
reached him. He set off for Poland, but his attempts to cross the border we=
re
foiled by Cossack patrols, and he was obliged to watch the debacle from
Dresden.
“In this
tranquil Saxon city he was gripped by inspiration and wrote frantically in =
fits
lasting up to three days, without pausing to eat or sleep. The fruit was the
third part of a long poetic drama entitled Forefathers’ Eve, w=
hich
can only be described as a national passion play. Mickiewicz had also seen =
the
significance of the holy night [of November 29, 1830], and he likened all
monarchs, and Nicholas in particular, to Herod – their sense of guilty
foreboding led them to massacre the youth of nations. The drama describes t=
he
transformation through suffering of the young poet and lover, Konrad, into a
warrior-poet. He is a parable for Poland as a whole, but he is also somethi=
ng
more. ‘My soul has now entered the motherland, and with my body I have
taken her soul: I and the motherland are one,’ he declares after havi=
ng
endured torture. ‘My name is Million, because I love and suffer for
millions… I feel the sufferings of the whole nation as a mother feels=
the
pain of the fruit within her womb.’
“In Paris = in 1832 Mickiewicz published a short work entitled Books of the Polish Nati= on and of the Pilgrimage of Poland. It was quickly translated into several languages and caused a sensation. It is a bizarre work, couched in biblical prose, giving a moral account of Polish history. After an Edenic period, lovingly described, comes the eighteenth century, a time when ‘nations were spoiled, so much so that among them there was left only one man, both citizen and soldier’ – a reference to Lafayetter. The ‘Satanic Trinity’ of Catherine of Russia, Frederick of Prussia = and Maria Theresa of Austria decided to murder Poland, because Poland was Liber= ty. They crucified the innocent nation while degenerate France played the role = of Pilate.[412] But that was not to be the end of it. ‘For the Polish nation did not = die; its body lies in the tomb, while its soul has left the earth, that is public life, and visited the abyss, that is the private life of peoples suffering slavery at home and in exile, in order to witness their suffering. And on t= he third day the soul will re-enter the body, and the nation will rise from the dead and will liberate all the peoples of Europe from slavery.’[413] In= a paraphrase of the Christian Creed, Liberty will then ascend the throne in t= he capital of the world, and judge the nations, ushering in the age of peace.<= o:p>
“So the Po=
lish
nation was now in Limbo, and all it had to do in order to bring about its o=
wn
resurrection and that of all grieving peoples was to cleanse and redeem its=
elf
through a process of expiation which Mickiewicz saw as its
‘pilgrimage’. This was to be a kind of forty days in the
wilderness. The pilgrims must fast and pray on the anniversaries of the bat=
tles
of Wawer and Grochow, reciting litanies to the 30,000 dead of the Confedera=
tion
of Bar and the 20,000 martyrs of Praga; they must observe their ancient cus=
toms
and wear national dress. One is reminded of Rousseau’s admonitions in hi=
s Considérations
sur le Gouvernement de Pologne.
&=
#8220;Rousseau
would have been proud of this generation. As one freedom fighter writes in =
his
memoirs: ‘Only he loves Poland with his heart and his soul, only he i=
s a
true son of his Motherland who has cast aside all lures and desires, all bad
habits, prejudice and passions, and been reborn in the pure faith, he who,
having recognized the reasons for our defeats and failures through his own
judgement and conviction, brings his whole love, his whole – not just
partial, but whole – conviction, his courage and his endurance, and l=
ays
them on the altar of the purely national future. He had taken part in the
November Rising and a conspiratorial fiasco in 1833, for which he was rewar=
ded
with fifteen years in the Spielberg and Küfstein prisons. Yet decades
later he still believed that the November Rising had ‘called Poland t=
o a
new life’ and brought her ‘salvation’ closer by a hundred
years. Such feelings were shared by tens of thousands, given expression by
countless poets and artists, and understood by all the literate classes.
“Most of
Mickiewicz’s countrymen read his works and wept over them. They
identified with them and learned them by heart. They did not follow the
precepts laid down in them, nor did they really believe in this gospel in a=
ny
literal sense. These works were a let-out, an excuse even, rather than a
guiding rule. But they did provide an underlying ethical explanation of a s=
tate
of affairs that was otherwise intolerable to the defeated patriots. It was =
an
explanation that made moral sense and was accepted at the subconscious leve=
l.
It was a spiritual and psychological lifeline that kept them from sinking i=
nto
a Slough of Despond. It made misfortune not only bearable, but desirable.
“And it wa=
s by
no means an expression of uniquely Polish sensibility. The cast of mind that
underlay it was common to most of Europe…”[414]
When Alexander II
became Tsar and was crowned King of Poland, he granted a general amnesty to
Polish prisoners in Russia, and about 9000 exiles returned to their homes f=
rom
Siberia between 1857 and 1860. However, they brought back with them the vir=
us
of nationalism. Thus on the day after the Tsar’s brother, Grand Duke
Constantine, was made viceroy of Poland, he was shot in the shoulder.
Nor did a progra=
mme of
“re-Polonization” – more liberal state administration and
local government, regulations governing the use of the Polish language, and
Polish educational institutions – appease the nationalists. Even when=
all
the other nations of Europe had settled down after the abortive revolutions=
of
1848, the Poles rose again.
“In January
1863,” writes John van de Kiste, “they slaughtered Russian sold=
iers
asleep in their Warsaw barracks, and national resistance turned to general
uprising. This spread through the kingdom into the nine formerly Polish
provinces known as Russia’s Western region, where powerful landlords =
and
Catholic clergy were ready to give vent to their hatred of Russian dominati=
on.
For a while it looked as if England, France and Austria might join in on the
side of Warsaw after giving their tacit blessing to the rebels, but Russia =
put
down the unrest at no little cost to the Poles…. While the Poles
butchered scores of Russian peasants including women and children, the Russ=
ians
erected gibbets in the streets where rebels and civilians were hanged in th=
eir
hundreds, with thousands more sent to Siberia. The insurrection was finally
quelled in May 1864, when the more conservative Count Theodore Berg was sen=
t to
replace Constantine as viceroy.”[415]
The French revol=
ution
was at first liberal in character, developing into socialist =
and totalitarian;
the Polish revolution was nationalist. Both directions were latent in
the original revolutionary project, in the logic of the struggle for
“freedom”. Which direction triumphed depended largely on the
circumstances in which the struggle for freedom took place – that of
oppressed individuals or classes within a sovereign nation or oppressed nat=
ions
within a multi-ethnic empire. As yet the potential conflicts between the two
– the fact that the liberation of the nation might mean putting off t=
he
liberation of the individual for the time being, and vice-versa – were
only dimly perceived.
Still less clear=
ly
perceived was the fact that the revolution could not be used to make limited
reforms, and then stopped in its tracks before it became
“dangerous”. The path that the first French revolution took aft=
er
1792 should have made that obvious. But many conservative liberals who took
part in the revolution of 1830 deluded themselves into thinking that the
further development of the revolutionary idea and passions could now be
arrested. They thought they could sow the wind without reaping the whirlwin=
d,
as if the genie could be let out of the bottle to do some necessary
“cleaning”, and then put back again before the cleaning breeze
became a hurricane. They failed to see that the revolution was not a ration=
al
human desire for limited, reasonable reform but an irrational, elemental, <=
i>satanic
force whose ultimate aim, whether those who purported to lead and manipulat=
e it
understood this or not, was simply total destruction.
One of the most
typical of these conservative liberals was François Guizot, Prime
Minister of France in the 1840s. In 1820, when Louis XVIII’s Charter
conceded legal equality, religious toleration and the necessity for
parliamentary consent to new laws on taxation, he declared: “I consid=
er
the revolution of 1789 to be over. All its interests and legitimate wishes =
are
guaranteed by the Charter…. What France needs now is to do away with =
the
revolutionary spirit which still torments her.”[416] Gu=
izot
wanted to believe that the “freedom” aimed at by the
revolutionaries of 1789 and 1830 was quite different from the
“freedom” aimed at by the revolutionaries of 1793, and therefore
that the revolution could conveniently stop in 1830, when the middle classes
were put back in the saddle after the period of reaction under Charles X, a=
nd
not go on to anything really radical and unpleasant. But is there really su=
ch a
radical opposition between the “freedom from” of the liberals a=
nd
the “freedom to” of the sans-culottes? How can one and not the
other be called “the spirit of insurrection”[417] wh=
en
both attained their ends by means of bloody insurrection against the
established order?
But
Guizot’s real ideal was not the French revolution, but the
“Glorious” English one of 1688, a relatively bloodless affair w=
hich
put the men of property firmly in power. Guizot thought that
“moderate” revolutions such as 1688 and 1789 could somehow avert
“radical” ones such as 1793. That is why he supported the overt=
hrow
of Charles X in 1830, hoping that Louis Philippe could play the role of Wil=
liam
of Orange to Charles X’s James II: “We did not choose the king =
but
negotiated with a prince [Orléans] we found next to the throne and w=
ho
alone could by mounting it guarantee our public law and save us from
revolutions… Our minds were guided by the English Revolution of 1688,=
by
the fine and free government it founded, and the wonderful prosperity it
brought to the British nation.”[418] And
since the English Revolution had put the middle classes into power (although
only after the Reform Act of 1832 did they really begin to acquire power at=
the
ballot box), he wanted the same for France. “I want,” he said,
“to secure the political preponderance of the middle classes in Franc=
e,
the final and complete organization of the great victory that the middle
classes have won over privilege and absolute power from 1789 to 1830.”=
;[419]
But Louis Philip=
pe,
though more liberal than his predecessor, was not liberal enough for the
For why should t=
he
spirit of liberty favour only the men of property and not also the proletar=
iat,
the Third Estate and not also the Fourth Estate? Guizot and Louis Philippe =
are
clear examples of the inconsistency and ultimate ineffectiveness of those w=
ho
oppose revolution, not root and branch, but only in its more obvious=
ly
unpleasant and radical manifestations.
The vanity of the
liberal hope of “limited revolution” was demonstrated by Hierom=
onk
Seraphim (Rose): “In the Christian order, “politics… was
founded upon absolute truth… The principal providential form governme=
nt
took in union with Christian Truth was the Orthodox Christian Empire, where=
in
sovereignty was vested in a Monarch, and authority proceeded from him downw=
ards
through a hierarchical social structure… On the other hand… a
politics that rejects Christian Truth must acknowledge ‘the people=
217;
as sovereign and understand authority as proceeding from below upwards, in a
formally ‘egalitarian’ society. It is clear that one is the per=
fect
inversion of the other; for they are opposed in their conceptions both of t=
he
source and of the end of government. Orthodox Christian Monarchy is governm=
ent
divinely established, and directed, ultimately, to the other world, governm=
ent
with the teaching of Christian Truth and the salvation of souls as its
profoundest purpose; Nihilist rule
- whose most fitting name… is Anarchy – is government
established by men, and directed solely to this world, government which has=
no
higher aim than earthly happiness.
“The Liber=
al
view of government, as one might suspect, is an attempt at compromise betwe=
en
these two irreconcilable ideas. In the 19th century this comprom=
ise
took the form of ‘constitutional monarchies’, an attempt –
again – to wed an old form to a new content; today the chief
representatives of the Liberal idea are the ‘republics’ and
‘democracies’ of Western Europe and America, most of which pres=
erve
a rather precarious balance between the forces of authority and Revolution,
while professing to believe in both.
“It is of =
course
impossible to believe in both with equal sincerity and fervor, and in fact =
no
one has ever done so. Constitutional monarchs like Louis Philippe thought t=
o do
so by professing to rule ‘by the Grace of God and the will of the
people’ – a formula whose two terms annul each other, a fact as
evident to the Anarchist [Bakunin] as to the Monarchist.
=
; “Now a governmen=
t is
secure insofar as it has God for its foundation and His Will for its guide;=
but
this, surely, is not a description of Liberal government. It is, in the Lib=
eral
view, the people who rule, and not God; God Himself is a ‘constitutio=
nal
monarch’ Whose authority has been totally delegated to the people, and
Whose function is entirely ceremonial. The Liberal believes in God with the
same rhetorical fervor with which he believes in Heaven. The government ere=
cted
upon such a faith is very little different, in principle, from a government
erected upon total disbelief; and whatever its present residue of stability=
, it
is clearly pointed in the direction of Anarchy.
“A governm= ent must rule by the Grace of God or by the will of the people, it must believe in authority or in the Revolution; on these issues compromis= e is possible only in semblance, and only for a time. The Revolution, like the disbelief which has always accompanied it, cannot be stopped halfway; it is= a force that, once awakened, will not rest until it ends in a totalitarian Kingdom of this world. The hi= story of the last two centuries has proved nothing if not this. To appease the Revolution and offer it concessions, as Liberals have always done, thereby showing that they have no truth with which to oppose it, is perhaps to postpone, but not to prevent, the attainment of its end. And to oppose the radical Revolution with a Revolution of one’s own, whether it be ‘conservative’, ‘non-violent’, or ‘spiritual’, is not merely to reveal ignorance of the full scope and nature of the Revolution of our time, but to concede as well the first principle of the Revolution: that the old truth is no longer true, and a new truth must take its place.”[421]<= o:p>
Liberalism and Free Trade
=
;
“Liberalis=
m,”
writes Norman Davies, “developed along two parallel tracks, the polit=
ical
and the economic. Political liberalism focused on the essential concept of
government by consent. It took its name from the liberales of Spain,=
who
drew up their Constitution of 1812 in opposition to the arbitrary powers of=
the
Spanish monarchy; but it had its roots much further back, in the political
theories of the Enlightenment and beyond. Indeed, for much of its early his=
tory
it was indistinguishable from the growth of limited government. Its first
lasting success may be seen in the American Revolution, though it drew heav=
ily
on the experiences of British parliamentarianism and on the first,
constitutional phase of the Revolution in France. In its most thoroughgoing
form it embraced republicanism, though most liberals welcomed a popular,
limited, and fair-minded monarch as a factor encouraging stability. Its
advocates stressed above all the rule of law, individual liberty,
constitutional procedures, religious toleration and the universal rights of
man. They opposed the inbuilt prerogatives, wherever they survived, of Crow=
n,
Church, or aristocracy. Nineteenth-century liberals also gave great weight =
to
property, which they saw as the principal source of responsible judgement a=
nd
solid citizenship. As a result, whilst taking the lead in clipping the wing=
s of
absolutism and in laying the foundations of modern democracy, they were not
prepared to envisage radical schemes for universal suffrage or for
egalitarianism.
“Economic =
liberalism
focused on the concept of free trade, and on the associated doctrine of =
laissez-faire,
which opposed the habit of governments to regular economic life through
protectionist tariffs. It stressed the right of men of property to engage in
commercial and industrial activities without undue restraint. Its energies =
were
directed on the one hand to dismantling the economic barriers which had
proliferated both within and between countries and on the other to battling
against all forms of collectivist organization, from the ancient guild to t=
he
new trade unions.”[422]
Liberalism was an
individualist creed in that its aim, in line with the main stream of
intellectual development since the Renaissance, was the maximum development=
and
happiness of individual men. It was concerned to protect individual freedoms
from the encroachment of all collectives, including the State. However, tre=
nds
towards individualism have always gone hand in hand historically with trend=
s in
the opposite, collectivist direction; and the horrors caused by liberal
individualism elicited the growth of socialist collectivism...
Economic liberal=
ism
was based on egoism in theory and practice. Thus in Adam Smith’s I=
nquiry
into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations (1776) we read:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the ba=
ker
that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We
address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love… [The
individual] is in this as in any other cases, led by an invisible hand to
promote an end which was no part of his intention… I have neve known =
much
good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an
affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words ne=
ed
to be employed in dissuading them from it.”[423]
It is a paradoxi=
cal
theory, to say the least: that the public interest is best served by everyo=
ne
pursuing his self-interest as freely as possible! Nor did the theory find m=
uch
immediate confirmation in practice, at least before the second half of the
nineteenth century. Certainly, there were some who got rich quick –
mainly those with initial capital and entrepreneurial skills. But for the g=
reat
majority of Englishmen economic liberalism meant the horror and squalor of
William Blake’s “satanic mills”. If “freedom”=
in
liberal theory means “freedom from”, it certainly did not mean
freedom from poverty, disease or death for the workers crowded together in =
filthy
slums in Manchester, where there could be very little “freedom toR=
21;
do anything at all except work oneself to the bone. It is hardly surprising
that not only the poor, but also many of the better-off who pitied them, ca=
me
to see look upon these liberal “freedoms” with jaundiced
eyes… Later, of course, largely under the pressure of humanitarian id=
eas
and the labour movement, capitalism did begin to restrain itself, thereby
disproving Marx’s prophecy of its imminent collapse. But the rise of
collectivism was not checked by these concessions, but was rather strengthe=
ned,
as we see throughout Europe as the nineteenth century progresses.
Free trade, the =
main
principle of economic liberalism, was a very important concept, first in
England, and then in other countries that followed the English way.
“True,R=
21;
writes J.M. Roberts, “it is almost impossible to find economic theori=
sts
and publicists of the early industrial period who advocated absolute
non-interference with the economy. Yet there was a broad, sustaining current
which favoured the view that much good would result if the market economy w=
as
left to operate without the help or hindrance of politicians and civil
servants. One force working this way was the teaching often summed up in a
phrase made famous by a group of Frenchmen: laissez-faire. Broadly
speaking, economists after Adam Smith had said with growing consensus that =
the
production of wealth would be accelerated, and therefore the general well-b=
eing
would increase, if the use of economic resources followed the
‘natural’ demands of the market. Another reinforcing trend was
individualism, embodied in both the assumption that individuals knew their =
own
business best and the increasing organization of society around the rights =
and
interests of the individual.
“These wer=
e the
sources of the long-enduring association between industrialism and liberali=
sm;
they were deplored by conservatives who regretted a hierarchical, agricultu=
ral
order of mutual obligations and duties, settled ideas, and religious values.
Yet liberals who welcomed the new age were by no means taking their stand o=
n a
simply negative and selfish base. The creed of ‘Manchester’, as=
it
was called because of the symbolic importance of that city in English
industrial and commercial development, was for its leaders much more than a
matter of mere self-enrichment. A great political battle which for years
preoccupied Englishmen in the early nineteenth century made this clear. Its
focus was a campaign for the repeal of what were called the ‘Corn
Laws’, a tariff system originally imposed to provide protection for t=
he
British farmer from imports of cheaper foreign grain. The
‘repealers’, whose ideological and political leader was a
none-too-successful businessman, Richard Cobden, argued that much was at st=
ake.
To begin with, retention of the duties on grain demonstrated the grip upon =
the
legislative machinery of the agricultural interest, the traditional ruling
class, who ought not to be allowed a monopoly of power. Opposed to it were =
the
dynamic forces of the future which sought to liberate the national economy =
from
such distortions in the interest of particular groups. Back came the reply =
of
the anti-repealers: the manufacturers were themselves a particular interest=
who
only wanted cheap food imports in order to be able to pay lower wages; if t=
hey
wanted to help the poor, what about some regulation of the conditions under
which they employed women and children in factories? There, the inhumanity =
of
the production process showed a callous disregard for the obligations of
privilege which would never have been tolerated in rural England. To this, =
the
repealers responded that cheap food would mean cheaper goods for export. An=
d in
this, for someone like Cobden, much more than profit was involved. A worldw=
ide
expansion of Free Trade untrammelled by the interference of mercantilist
governments would lead to international progress both material and spiritua=
l,
he thought; trade brought peoples together, exchanged and multiplied the
blessings of civilization and increased the power in each country of its
progressive forces. On one occasion he committed himself to the view that F=
ree
Trade was the expression of the Divine Will (though even this did not go as=
far
as the British consul at Canton who had proclaimed that ‘Jesus Christ=
is
Free Trade, and Free Trade is Jesus Christ’)…
“Only in E=
ngland
was the issue fought out so explicitly and to so clear-cut a conclusion. In
other countries, paradoxically, the protectionists soon turned out to have =
the
best of it. Only in the middle of the century, a period of expansion and
prosperity, especially for the British economy, did Free Trade ideals get m=
uch
support outside the United Kingdom, whose prosperity was regarded by believ=
ers
as evidence of the correctness of their views and even mollified their
opponents; Free Trade became a British political dogma, untouchable until w=
ell
into the twentieth century. The prestige of British economic leadership hel=
ped
to give it a brief popularity elsewhere, too. The prosperity of the era in =
fact
owed as much to other influences as to this ideological triumph, but the be=
lief
added to the optimism of economic liberals. Their creed was the culmination=
of
the progressive view of Man’s potential as an individual, whose roots=
lay
in Enlightenment ideas.”[424]
The difference b=
etween
the old patriarchal attitude towards social and economic relations and the =
new
attitude promulgated by the economic liberals is seen in the contrast betwe=
en
Lord Ashley and Richard Cobden: “Lord Ashley, the Christian Tory
philanthropist who did so much to campaign for the improvement of working
conditions for the poor, hated the competitive atmosphere of factories.
Visiting his ancestral seat, St. Giles in the county of Dorset, he noted in=
his
diary on 29 June 1841, ‘What a picture contrasted with a factory
district, a people known and cared for, a people born and trained on the
estate, exhibiting towards its hereditary possessors both deference and
sympathy, affectionate respect and a species of allegiance demanding protec=
tion
and repaying it in duty.’ To the Northern factory-owners such patroni=
zing
attitudes led only to stultification. There was no movement, no struggle, in
Ashley’s view of society. Cobden, the Corn Law reformer par excell=
ence,
hated Ashley’s attempts to set limits to an employer’s powers
– the length of hours he could make factory hands work, or the limiti=
ng
of the age of his employees. ‘Mine is that masculine species of chari=
ty
which would lead me to inculcate in the minds of the labouring classes the =
love
of independence, the privilege of self respect, the disdain of being patron=
ised
or petted, the desire to accumulate and the ambition to rise.’”=
[425]
Cobden’s
“masculine species of charity” was imitated by other industrial
employers and landlords, who felt much less bound by custom and morality to
protect their employees than had the feudal landlords of previous ages.
Trevelyan writes: “Throughout the ‘forties nothing was done to
control the slum landlords and jerrybuilders, who, according to the prevale=
nt laissez-faire
philosophy, were engaged from motives of self-interest in forwarding the
general happiness. These pioneers of ‘progress’ saved space by
crowding families into single rooms or thrusting them underground into cell=
ars,
and saved money by the use of cheap and insufficient building materials, an=
d by
providing no drains – or, worse still, by providing drains that oozed
into the water supply. In London, Lord Shaftesbury discovered a room with a
family in each of its four corners, and a room with a cesspool immediately
below its boarded floor. We may even regard it as fortunate that cholera
ensured, first in the years of the Reform Bill and then in 1848, because the
sensational character of this novel visitation scared society into the tardy
beginnings of sanitary self-defence.”[426]
What legislation=
there
was in this period of what Sir Karl Popper aptly called “unrestrained
capitalism” only exacerbated the plight of the poor. This was
particularly true of the Poor Law Act of 1834, which prescribed the buildin=
g of
workhouses that were designed to be as unattractive as possible. Thus the
Reverend H.H. Milman wrote to Edwin Chadwick: “The workhouses should =
be a
place of hardship, of coarse fare, of degradation and humility; it should be
administered with strictness – with severity; it should be as repulsi=
ve
as is consistent with humanity.”[427]
The Poor Law, as=
John
Gray writes, “set the level of subsistence lower than the lowest wage=
set
by the market. It stigmatised the recipient by attaching the harshest and m=
ost
demeaning conditions to relief. It weakened the institution of the family. =
It
established a laissez-faire regime in which individuals were solely
responsible for their own welfare, rather than sharing that responsibility =
with
their communities.
“Eri=
c Hobsbawm
captures the background, character and effects of the welfare reforms of the
1830s when he writes: ‘The traditional view, which still survived in a
distorted way in all classes of rural society and in the internal relations=
of
working-class groups, was that a man had a right to earn a living, and, if
unable to do so, a right to be kept alive by the community. The view of
middle-class liberal economists was that men should take such jobs as the
market offered, wherever and at whatever rate it offered, and the rational =
man
would, by individual or voluntary collective saving and insurance make
provision for accident, illness and old age. The residuum of paupers could =
not,
admittedly, be left actually to starve, but they ought not to be given more=
than
the absolute minimum – provided it was less than the lowest wages off=
ered
in the market, and in the most discouraging conditions. The Poor Law was no=
t so
much intended to help the unfortunate as to stigmatize the self-confessed
failures of society… There have been few more inhuman statutes than t=
he
Poor Law Act of 1834, which made all relief ‘less eligible’ than
the lowest wage outside, confined it to the jail-like work-house, forcibly
separating husbands, wives and children in order to punish the poor for the=
ir
destitution.’
“This syst=
em
applied to at least 10 per cent of the English population in the mid-Victor=
ian
period. It remained in force until the outbreak of the First World War.
“The centr=
al
thrust of the Poor Law reforms was to transfer responsibility for protection
against insecurity and misfortune from communities to individuals and to co=
mpel
people to accept work at whatever rate the market set. The same principle h=
as
informed many of the welfare reforms that have underpinned the re-engineeri=
ng
of the free market in the late twentieth century…
“No less
important than Poor Law reform in the mid-nineteenth century was legislation
designed to remove obstacles to the determination of wages by the market. D=
avid
Ricardo stated the orthodox view of the classical economists when he wrote,
‘Wages should be left to fair and free competition of the market, and
should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.’
“It was by
appeal to such canonical statements of laissez-faire that the Statut=
e of
Apprentices (enacted after the Black Death in the fourteenth century) was
repealed and all other controls on wages ended in the period leading up to =
the
1830s. Even the Factory Acts of 1833, 1844 and 1847 avoided any head-on col=
lision
with laissez-faire orthodoxies. ‘The principle that there shou=
ld
be no interference in the freedom of contract between master and man was
honoured to the extent that no direct legislative interference was made in =
the
relationship between employers and adult males… it was still possible=
to
argue for a further half-century, though with diminishing plausibility, that
the principle of non-interference remained inviolate.’
“The remov=
al of
agricultural protection and the establishment of free trade, the reform of =
the
poor laws with the aim of constraining the poor to take work, and the remov=
al
of any remaining controls on wages were the three decisive steps in the
construction of the free market in mid-nineteenth century Britain. These key
measures created out of the market economy of the 1830s the unregulated free
market of mid-Victorian times that is the model for all subsequent neo-libe=
ral
policies.”[428]
The industrial
bourgeoisie who formed the core of the new “middle class” were,=
as
Eric Hobsbawm writes,
“self-made men, or at least men of modest origins who owed lit=
tle
to birth, family or formal higher education. (Like Mr. Bounderly in
Dickens’ Hard Times, they were not reluctant to advertise the
fact.) They were rich and getting richer by the year. They were above all
imbued with the ferocious and dynamic self-confidence of those whose own
careers prove to them that divine providence, science and history have comb=
ined
to present the earth to them on a platter.
”’Political economy’, translated into a few simple
dogmatic propositions by self-made journalist-publishers who hymned the vir=
tues
of capitalism… gave them intellectual certainty. Protestant dissent of
the hard Independent, Utilitarian, Baptist and Quaker rather than the emoti=
onal
Methodist type gave them spiritual certainty and a contempt for useless
aristocrats. Neither fear, anger, nor even pity moved the employer who told=
his
workers:
“’Th=
e God
of Nature has established a just and equitable law which man has no right to
disturb; when he ventures to do so it is always certain that he, sooner or
later, meets with corresponding punishment… Thus when masters audacio=
usly
combine that by an union of power they may more effectually oppress their
servants; by such an act, they insult the majesty of Heaven, and bring down=
the
curse of God upon themselves, while on the other hand, when servants unite =
to
extort from their employers that share of the profit which of right belongs=
to
the master, they equally violate the laws of equity.’
=
;
“There was=
an
order in the universe, but it was no longer the order of the past. There was
only one God, whose name was steam and spoke in the voice of Malthus,
McCulloch, and anyone who employed machinery…
“A pietist=
ic
Protestantism, rigid, self-righteous, unintellectual, obsessed with puritan
morality to the point where hypocrisy was its automatic companion, dominated
this desolate epoch. ‘Virtue’, as G.M. Young said, ‘advan=
ced
on a broad invincible front’; and it trod the unvirtuous, the weak, t=
he
sinful (i.e. those who neither made money nor controlled their emotional or
financial expenditures) into the mud where they so plainly belonged, deserv=
ing
at best only of their betters’ charity. There was some capitalist
economic sense in this. Small entrepreneurs had to plough back much of their
profits into the business if they were to become big entrepreneurs. The mas=
ses
of new proletarians had to be broken into the industrial rhythm of labour by
the most draconian labour discipline, or left to rot if they would not acce=
pt
it. And yet even today the heart contracts at the sight of the landscape
constructed by that generation.
“‘Yo=
u saw
nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a
religious persuasion built a chapel there – as the members of eighteen
religious persuasions had done – they made it a pious warehouse of red
brick, with sometimes (but this only in highly ornamented examples) a bell =
in a
bird-cage on the top of it… All the public inscriptions in the town w=
ere
pained alike, in severe characters of black and white. The jail might have =
been
the infirmary, the town-hall might have been either, or both, or anything e=
lse,
for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construct=
ion.
Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact,
fact, everywhere in the immaterial… Everything was fact between the
lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in
figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in =
the
dearest, was not and never should be, world without end, Amen.’
“This gaunt
devotion to bourgeois utilitarianism, which the evangelicals and puritans
shared with the agnostic eighteenth-century ‘philosophic radicalsR=
17;
who put it into logical words for them, produced its own functional beauty =
in
railway lines, bridges and warehouses, and its romantic horror in the
smoke-drenched endless grey-black or reddish files of small houses overlook=
ed
by the fortresses of the mills. Outside it the new bourgeoisie lived (if it=
had
accumulated enough money to move), dispensing command, moral education and
assistance to missionary endeavour among the black heathen abroad. Its men
personified the money which proved their right to rule the world; its women,
deprived by their husbands’ money even of the satisfaction of actually
doing household work, personified the virtue of their class: stupid (‘=
;be
good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever’), uneducated, impractic=
al,
theoretically unisexual, propertyless and protected. They were the only lux=
ury
which the age of thrift and self-help allowed itself.
“The Briti=
sh
manufacturing bourgeoisie was the most extreme example of its class, but all
over the continent there were smaller groups of the same kind: Catholic in =
the
textile districts of the French North or Catalonia, Calvinist in Alsace,
Lutheran pietist in the Rhineland, Jewish all over central and eastern Euro=
pe.
They were rarely quite as hard as in Britain, for they were rarely quite as
divorced from the older traditions of urban life and paternalism. Leon Fauc=
her
was painfully struck, in spite of his doctrinaire liberalism, by the sight =
of
Manchester in the 1840s, as which continental observer was not? But they sh=
ared
with the English the confidence which came from steady enrichment…=
221;[429]
Even the Anglican
Church, which hardly penetrated into the new industrial slums, seemed to be=
on
the side of the exploiters. “A typical representative of this kind of
Christianity was the High Church priest J. Townsend, author of A
Dissertation on the Poor Laws, by a Wellwisher of Mankind, an extremely
crude apologist for exploitation whom Marx exposed. ‘Hunger,’
Townsend begins his eulogy, ‘is not only a peaceable, silent, unremit=
ted
pressure but, as the most natural motive of industry and labour, it calls f=
orth
the most powerful exertions.’ In Townsend’s ‘Christian=
217;
world order, everything depends (as Marx observes) upon making hunger perma=
nent
among the working class; and Townsend believes that this is indeed the divi=
ne
purpose of the principle of the growth of population; for he goes on: ̵=
6;It
seems to be a law of nature that the poor should be to a certain degree
improvident, so that there may always be some to fulfil the most servile, t=
he
most sordid, the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human
happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate… are le=
ft
at liberty without interruption to pursue those callings which are suited to
their various dispositions.’ And the ‘delicate priestly
sychophant’, as Marx called him for this remark, adds that the Poor L=
aw,
by helping the hungry, ‘tends to destroy the harmony and beauty, the
symmetry and order, of that system which God and nature have established in=
the
world.’”[430]
With the official
Church effectively on the side of the exploiters, it was left to
“Christian socialists”, individual preachers and philanthropist=
s,
and, above all, novelists to elicit the milk of human kindness from the hard
breasts of the rich.
The realistic no=
vel in
the hands of great writers such as Dickens and Balzac acquired an importanc=
e it
had not had in earlier ages, teaching morality without moralising. Thus Mrs.
Elisabeth Gaskell’s North and South not only brought home to
readers in the rural south the sufferings of the industrial north: it also
showed how the philosophy of Free Trade tended to drive out even the Christ=
ian
practice of almsgiving. For the novel describes how the industrialist Thorn=
ton,
though not a cruel man at heart, is against helping the starving families of
his striking workers on the grounds that helping them would help prolong the
strike, which, if successful, would force him out of business, which would =
mean
unemployment and starvation for those same workers. But in the end he is le=
d by
the woman he loves to see how a thriving business and kindness to the worke=
rs
can be combined.
The Irish Fami= ne<= o:p>
The doctrine of
economic liberalism, or Free Trade, gained its decisive victory in 1846, wh=
en
the Tory Prime Minister, Lord Peel, made a dramatic volte-face and v=
oted
for the repeal of the Corn Laws, thereby creating civil war in his party and
condemning it to the political wilderness for a generation. But before he l=
eft
office, the terrible fruits of the doctrine he had just espoused were making
themselves felt in one of the greatest tragedies of modern history: the Iri=
sh
famine.
Thus it was not =
only
the workers and peasants of England who suffered from Free Trade: it devast=
ated
also the earliest colony of the British Empire.
True, the immediate=
cause
of the famine was not Free Trade, but a blight of the potato crop on which =
the
eight million Irish depended for their survival. However, it was the
callousness of the English governing class – whose callousness was in=
no
small part caused by the political and economic doctrines it espoused ̵=
1;
that made the eventual death-toll (1.1 million between 1845 and 1850) as la=
rge
as it was. As [431] J=
ohn
Mitchel put the same point as follows in his The Last Conquest of Ireland
(Perhaps) 1860: “The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight, but =
the
English created the Famine.”
“These
words,” writes A.N. Wilson, “very understandably became the
unshakeable conviction of the Irish, particularly those forced into exile by
hunder. The tendency of modern historians is not so much to single out
individuals for blame, such as Charles Edward Trevelyan, permanent head of =
the
Treasury, as to point to the whole attitude of mind of the governing class =
and
the, by modern standards, gross inequalities which were taken for granted.
Almost any member of the governing class would have shared some of
Trevelyan’s attitudes.
“But there=
is
more to John Mitchel’s famous statement (one could almost call it a
declaration of war) than mere rhetoric. Deeply ingrained with the immediate
horrors of the famine was the overall structure of Irish agrarian society,
which placed Irish land and wealth in the hands of English (or in effect
English) aristocrats. It was the belief of a Liberal laissez-faire economist
such as Lord John Russell that the hunger of Irish peasants was not the
responsibility of government but of landowners. No more callous example of a
political doctrine being pursued to the death – quite literally ̵=
1;
exists in the annals of British history. But Lord John Russell’s gove=
rnment,
when considering the Irish problem, were not envisaging some faraway island=
in
which they had no personal concern. A quarter of the peers in the House of
Lords had Irish interests…”[432]
Another factor
contributing to English callousness was “No Popery”. “The=
re
were plenty who saw [the famine] as ‘a special “mercy”,
calling sinners both to evangelical truth and the Dismantling of all artifi=
cal
obstacles to divinely-inspired spiritual and economic order’, as one
pamphlet put it.”[433]
In spite of such
attitudes, there were English men and women who felt their consciences and
contributed to the relief of the famine – Queen Victoria and Baron
Rothschild among them. “Yet these overtures from the English side,=
221;
continues Wilson, “were undoubtedly made against a tide of prejudice =
and
bitterness. The hordes of Irish poor crowding into English slums did not ev=
oke
pity – rather, fear and contempt. The Whiggish Liberal Manchester
Guardian blamed the famine quite largely on the feckless Irish attitude=
s to
agriculture, family, life in general. Small English farmers, said this
self-righteous newspaper, don’t divide farms into four which are only
sufficient to feed one family. (The economic necessities which forced the I=
rish
to do this were conveniently overlooked by the Manchester Guardian:
indeed economic weakness, in the Darwinian jungle, is the equivalent of sin=
.)
Why weren’t the English starving? Because ‘they bring up their
children in habits of frugality, which qualify them for earning their own
living, and then send them forth into the world to look for employment̵=
7;.
“We are de=
cades
away from any organized Irish Republican Movement. Nevertheless, in the mid=
st
of the famine unrest, we find innumerable ripe examples of British double
standards where violence is in question. An Englishman protecting his gross=
ly
selfish way of life with a huge apparatus of police and military, prepared =
to
gun down the starving, is maintaining law and order. An Irishman retaliatin=
g is
a terrorist. John Bright, the Liberal Free Trader, hero of the campaign aga=
inst
the Corn Laws, blamed Irish idleness for their hunger – ‘I beli=
eve
it would be found on inquiry, that the population of Ireland, as compared w=
ith
that of England, do not work more than two days a week.’ The marked i=
ncrease
in homicides during the years 1846 and 1847 filled these English liberals w=
ith
terror. There were 68 reported homicides in Ireland in 1846, 96 in 1847, 126
shootings in the latter year compared with 55 the year before. Rather than
putting these in the contexts of hundreds of thousands of deaths annually by
starvation, the textile manufacturer from Rochdale blames all the violence =
of
these starving Celts on their innate idleness. ‘Wherever a people are=
not
industrious and not employed, there is the greatest danger of crime and
outrage. Ireland is idle, and therefore she starves; Ireland starves, and
therefore she rebels.’
“Both halv=
es of
this sentence are factually wrong. Ireland most astonishingly did not rebel
in, or immediately after, the famine years; and we have said enough to show
that though there was poverty, extreme poverty, before 1845, many Irish
families survived heroically on potatoes alone. The economic structure of a
society in which they could afford a quarter or a half an acre of land on w=
hich
to grow a spud while the Duke of Devonshire owned Lismore, Bolton (and half
Yorkshire), Chatsworth (and ditto Derbyshire), the whole of Eastbourne and a
huge palace in London was not of the Irish peasant’s making.
“By 1848/9=
the
attitude of Lord John Russell’s government had become Malthusian, not=
to
say Darwinian, in the extreme. As always happens when famine takes hold, it=
was
followed by disease. Cholera swept through Belfast and Co. Mayo in 1848,
spreading to other districts. In the workhouses, crowded to capacity,
dysentery, fevers and ophthalmia were endemic – 13,812 case of ophtha=
lmia
in 1849 rose to 27,200 in 1850. Clarendon and Trevelyan now used the euphem=
ism
of ‘natural causes’ to describe death by starvation. The gentle
Platonist-Hegelian philosopher Benjamin Jowett once said, ‘I have alw=
ays
felt a certain horror of political economists, since I heard one of them say
that he feared the famine of 1848 in Ireland would not kill more than a mil=
lion
people, and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.’ As so oft=
en
Sydney Smith was right: ‘The moment the very name of Ireland is
mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence=
and
common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of i=
diots.’”[434]
The British Em= pire<= o:p>
The tragedy of t=
he
Irish famine, and the callousness of the English ruling class’s respo=
nse
to it, brings us to the question: how could a country whose ideology was
liberalism, and which had fought, and would continue to fight, under the ba=
nner
of freedom from tyranny for all peoples, then set about creating the largest
empire the world had ever seen, enslaving hundreds of millions of peoples to
itself?
Of course, there=
are
many very different kinds and qualities of empire. The principal argument of
this series of books is that one kind in particular – the Orthodox
Christian Empire, based on the symphony of powers between the Orthodox Auto=
crat
and the Orthodox Church – is in fact the best form of government yet
devised for the attainment of the supreme end of man: the salvation of his
immortal soul. The British Empire was not of this type, although it also
claimed to be bringing the salvation of Christ to heathen peoples.
But could it be =
argued
that the British Empire, as the first exemplar of what Ferguson calls
“the liberal Empire”, did more good than evil? Ferguson summari=
ses
his case for the British Empire as follows: “For much (though certain=
ly,
as we shall see, not all) of its history, the British Empire acted as an ag=
ency
for imposing free markets, the rule of law, investor protection and relativ=
ely
incorrupt government on roughly a quarter of the world. The Empire also did=
a
good deal to encourage those things in countries which were outside its for=
mal
imperial domain but under its economic influence through the ‘imperia=
lism
of free trade’. Prima facie, there therefore seems a plausible
case that empire enhanced global welfare – in other words, was a Good
Thing.
“Many char=
ges
can of course be leveled against the British Empire; they will not be dropp=
ed
in what follows. I do not claim, as John Stuart Mill did, that British rule=
in
India was ‘not only the purest in intention but one of the most
beneficent in act ever known to mankind’; nor, as Lord Curzon did, th=
at
‘the British Empire is under Providence the greatest instrument for g=
ood
that the world has seen’; nor, as General Smuts claimed, that it was
‘the widest system of organized human freedom which has ever existed =
in
human history’. The Empire was never so altruistic. In the eighteenth
century the British were indeed as zealous in the acquisition and exploitat=
ion
of slaves as they were subsequently zealous in trying to stamp slavery out;=
and
for much longer they practiced forms of racial discrimination and segregati=
on
that we today consider abhorrent. When imperial authority was challenged
– in India in 1857, in Jamaica in 1831 or 1865, in South Africa in 18=
99
– the British response was brutal. When famine struck (in Ireland in =
the
1840s, in India in the 1870s) their response was negligent, in some measure
positively culpable. Even when they took a scholarly interest in oriental
cultures, perhaps they did subtly denigrate them in the process.
“Yet the f=
act
remains that no organization in history has done more to promote the free
movement of goods, capital and labour than the British Empire in the ninete=
enth
and early twentieth centuries. And no organization has done more to impose
Western norms of law, order and governance around the world. To characteriz=
e all
this as ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ risks underselling the scale
– and modernity – of the achievement in the sphere of economics;
just as criticism of the ‘ornamental’ (meaning hierarchical)
character of British rule overseas tends to overlook the signal virtues of =
what
were remarkable non-venal administrations.”[435]
Of course, this =
begs
the question whether “the free movement of goods, capital and
labour” is such an indubitable good. In England for generations it wa=
s an
indubitable evil, in that it plunged the vast majority of the population
– the rural as well as the urban poor – into terrible,
soul-destroying poverty, while increasing the pride, cruelty and hypocrisy =
of
the governing class to a proverbial degree (“Victorian hypocrisy̶=
1;
is still a byword). Nor does the fact that liberal England gradually, very
gradually corrected these ills – significantly, by abandoning the str=
ict
theory of Free Trade and the non-interference of government through the
enactment of various social reforms and the beginning of the Welfare State
– alter this judgement, unless we are to believe, with the Jesuits, t=
hat
“the end justifies the means”, and that the cruelty of Victorian
England is justified by the relatively more just and humane England of the =
later
twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
If “the fr=
ee
movement of goods, capital and labour” was such a disaster for the
British themselves as weighed on the scale of that utilitarian principle of
Jeremy Bentham, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”=
, it
is difficult to see how it could have been a boon for anyone else. Thus the
destruction of the indigenous Indian textile industry by competition with t=
he
factories of Northern England doomed millions of Indian peasants to even
greater poverty. And if the British administration was indeed less venal th=
an
the Mughal one that it replaced, this was a relatively small benefit to pla=
ce
in the scale against the five million dead in the Bengal famine of 1873-74 =
and
the famines that periodically recurred thereafter. Of course, if it is argu=
ed
that such suffering was justified in that it was a necessary stage “on
the path to modernity” and the modern, democratic India, then we are =
back
with the Jesuit principle again and the idea that the sufferings of one gen=
eration,
undertaken unwillingly and imposed for less than altruistic motives, can
compensate for the relatively greater prosperity of another, much later one=
.
Ferguson continu=
es:
“Even if we allow for the possibility that trade, capital flows and
migration could have been ‘naturally occurring’ in the past 300
years, there remain the flows of culture and institutions. And here the
fingerprints of empire seem more readily discernible and less easy to expun=
ge.
“When the
British governed a country – even when they only influenced its
government by flexing their military and financial muscles – there we=
re
certain distinctive features of their own society that they tended to
disseminate. A list of the most important of these would run:
“The last =
of
these is perhaps the most important because it remains the most distinctive
feature of the Empire, the thing that sets it apart from its continental
rivals. I do not mean to claim that all British imperialists were liberals:
some were very far from it. But what is striking about the history of the
Empire is that whenever the British were behaving despotically, there was
almost always a liberal critique of that behaviour from within British soci=
ety.
Indeed, so powerful and consistent was this tendency to judge Britain’=
;s
imperial conduct by the yardstick of liberty that it gave the British Empire
something of a self-liquidating character. Once a colonized society had
sufficiently adopted the other institutions the British brought with them, =
it
became very hard for the British to prohibit that political liberty to which
they attached so much significance for themselves.”[436]
This is a fair p=
oint,
but a highly paradoxical one. For it presupposes that the “liberal
Empire” of Britain could only introduce the benefits of liberalism by
illiberal means, by coercion, and that these benefits were perceived not
immediately, but only after several generations had passed, when the former=
ly
uncivilised tribes had matured to the extent of being capable of parliament=
ary
self-government. Moreover, as history was to show, even when a colony had
attained a certain maturity, the Empire was rarely willing to hand over
self-government voluntarily, as its liberal principles implied that it shou=
ld.
This was because=
, as
Ferguson admits, the spreading of liberalism was not the real motivation for
the creation of the Empire, but rather commercial gain from the import of
sugar, spices, cotton, etc., and the export of manufactures, financial
services, etc. When that commercial gain was threatened for one reason or
another, the British response was to send in the gunboats or the redcoats, =
and
annex the territory in question. And so “the rise of the British Empi=
re,
it might be said, had less to do with the Protestant work ethic, or English
individualism than with the British sweet tooth.”[437]
And when the end=
of
the Empire came, after the Second World War, it came not so much as result =
of
the British at length deciding that the natives were now mature enough to
govern themselves, nor even because the natives’ demand for
self-government acquired an unstoppable momentum, but simply because the Em=
pire
was now broke and could no longer afford its colonies…[438]
De Tocqueville on
America
Although liberal democrac=
y was
the accepted panacea among all Anglo-Saxon intellectuals except those on the
extreme right and left, the system had its critics, even among democrats, a=
nd
one of the best of them was Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in
America was published in 1835.
An important fau=
lt of
American democracy was what de Tocqueville called “the tyranny of the
majority”, whose power, he considered, threatened to become not only
predominant (which was only to be expected in a democracy), but irresistibl=
e.
“The moral
authority of the majority is partly based on the notion that there is more
enlightenment and wisdom in a numerous assembly than in a single man, and t=
he
number of the legislators is more important than how they are chosen. It is=
the
theory of equality applied to brains. This doctrine attacks the last asylum=
of
human pride; for that reason the minority is reluctant in admitting it and
takes a long time to get used to it…
“The idea =
that
the majority has a right based on enlightenment to govern society was broug=
ht
to the United States by its first inhabitants; and this idea, which would of
itself be enough to create a free nation, has by now passed into mores and
affects even the smallest habits of life…”[439]
One effect,
paradoxically, of this extreme freedom was an extreme intolerance of the
dissident opinion. “I know of no country in which there is so little
independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. The majo=
rity
raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barr=
iers
an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond
them.”[440]
This contributed=
to a
general “dumbing down” of culture generally, although this
cultivated Frenchman admitted it also prevented complete brutalization.
“Few pleasures are either very refined or very coarse, and highly pol=
ished
manners are as uncommon as great brutality of tastes. Neither men of great
learning nor extremely ignorant communities are to be met with; genius beco=
mes
more rare, information more diffused. There is less perfection, but more
abundance in all the productions of the arts.”[441]
This state of af=
fairs
was facilitated by the fact that there was no native American aristocracy, =
and
few minority interests (except those of the Indians and Negroes) which were
directly and permanently antagonistic to the interests of the majority.
“Hence the majority in the United States has immense actual power and=
a
power of opinion which is almost as great. When once its mind is made up on=
any
question, there are, so to say, no obstacles which can retard, much less ha=
lt,
its progress and give it time to hear the wails of those it crushes as it
passes.
“The
consequences of this state of affairs are fate-laden and dangerous for the
future…”[442]
One of the
consequences was legislative instability, “an ill inherent in democra=
tic
government because it is the nature of democracies to bring new men to
power…. Thus American laws have a shorter duration than those of any
other country in the world today. Almost all American constitutions have be=
en
amended within the last thirty years, and so there is no American state whi=
ch
has not modified the basis of its laws within that period…
“As the ma=
jority
is the only power whom it is important to please, all its projects are take=
n up
with great ardour; but as soon as its attention is turned elsewhere, all th=
ese
efforts cease; whereas in free European states, where the administrative
authority has an independent existence and an assured position, the
legislator’s wishes continue to be executed even when he is occupied =
by
other matters.”[443]
But, continues de
Tocqueville, “I regard it as an impious and detestable maxim that in
matters of government the majority of a people has the right to do everythi=
ng,
and nevertheless I place the origin of all powers in the will of the majori=
ty.
Am I in contradiction with myself?
“There is =
one
law which has been made, or at least adopted, not by the majority of this or
that people, but by the majority of all men. That law is justice.
“Justice
therefore forms the boundary to each people’s right.
“A nation =
is
like a jury entrusted to represent universal society and to apply the justi=
ce
which is its law. Should the jury representing society have greater power t=
han
that very society whose laws it applies?
“Consequen=
tly,
when I refuse to obey an unjust law, I be no means deny the majority’s
right to give orders; I only appeal from the sovereignty of the people to t=
he
sovereignty of the human race.”[444]
In a believing a=
ge,
instead of “the sovereignty of the human race”, the phrase would
have been: “the sovereignty of God” or “the authority of =
the
Church as the representative of God”. But after this obeisance to the
atheist and democratic temper of his age, de Tocqueville does in fact invoke
the sovereignty of God. For the essential fact is that the majority –
even the majority of the human race – can be wrong, and that only God=
is
infallible. “Omnipotence in itself seems a bad and dangerous thing. I
think that its exercise is beyond man’s strength, whoever he be, and =
that
only God can be omnipotent without danger because His wisdom and justice are
always equal to His power. So there is no power on earth in itself so worth=
y of
respect or vested with such a sacred right that I would wish to let it act
without control and dominate without obstacles. So when I see the right and
capacity to do all given to any authority whatsoever, whether it be called
people or king, democracy or aristocracy, and whether the scene of action i=
s a
monarchy or a republic, I say: the germ of tyranny is there, and I will go =
look
for other laws under which to live.
“My greate=
st
complaint against democratic government as organised in the United States is
not, as many Europeans make out, its weakness, but rather its irresistible
strength. What I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom
reigning there, but the shortage of guarantees against tyranny.
“When a ma=
n or a
party suffers an injustice in the United States, to whom can he turn? To pu=
blic
opinion? That is what forms the majority. To the legislative body? It
represents the majority and obeys it blindly. To the executive power? It is
appointed by the majority and serves as its passive instrument. To the poli=
ce?
They are nothing but the majority under arms. A jury? The jury is the major=
ity
vested with the right to pronounce judgement; even the judges in certain st=
ates
are elected by the majority. So, however, iniquitous or unreasonable the
measure which hurts you, you must submit.
“But suppo=
se you
were to have a legislative body so composed that it represented the majority
without being necessarily the slave of its passions, an executive power hav=
ing
a strength of its own, and a judicial power independent of the other two
authorities; then you would still have a democratic government, but there w=
ould
be hardly any remaining risk of tyranny.”[445]
The democratic government de Tocqueville had in mind here as preventing the tyranny of the majority was probably that of England, with its rule by “the king in parliament”, its respect for custom and strong aristocratic element. = And it is to a closer consideration of English political liberalism that we now turn.
Mill on Liberty
Foreigners were
impressed by England’s political system because it appeared able to
combine freedom with stability, individualism with solidarity, power with
prosperity (for the few), gradual extension of rights with traditional
deference to title and rank, science and progress with morality and religio=
n.
And yet, as we have seen, the objective reasons for a revolution from below
were, if anything, stronger in England than elsewhere; the poverty of the
majority was worse; the contempt in which they were held by the rich minori=
ty
greater. So why was England able to avoid the continual upheavals that we s=
ee in
contemporary France and on the continent?
One reason was
undoubtedly that the rich minority were able to use the improved methods of
communication, especially the railways, to concentrate the power of a great=
ly
increased police force against troublemakers more quickly than on the
continent. A second was the unprecedentedly large emigration to America and=
the
White Dominions (in the case of Australia, of course, this
“emigration” was compulsory), which served a safety-valve for t=
he
desperately poor. A third was that the rapidly increasing lower middle clas=
ses,
though poor, already had more than their chains to lose, and so tended to
support the existing system. They needed the patronage of the rich, and loo=
ked
down on the proletarians below them, whose desperation they feared. The rich
took this into account, and so were able to proceed more slowly than they m=
ight
otherwise have done in the work of helping the poor.
But they did int=
roduce
just enough reforms to maintain stability. As Barzun writes: “This kn=
ack
of judging when and how things must change without upsetting the apple cart=
was
painfully acquired by the English over the centuries. They were long reputed
the ungovernable people. But fatigue caught up at last and a well-rooted an=
ti-intellectualism
helped to keep changes unsystematic and under wraps. Forms, titles,
décor remain while different actions occur beneath them; visual
stability maintains confidence. It was the knack of rising above principle,=
the
reward of shrewd inconsistency.”[446]
This
“knack” paid dividends (literally and metaphorically). The 1850s
saw England at her peak from an external, material point of view. Her navies
ruled the seas; her trade and industry was far greater than any other
country’s (though America and Germany were catching up fast). And whi=
le
liberalism failed on the continent after 1848 as monarchy revived and the
proletariat raged, in England it remained remarkably stable. It was to give=
a
theoretical underpinning to this English variety of liberalism, that John
Stuart Mill wrote his famous On Liberty, which remains to this day t=
he
most elegant and influential defence of English liberalism.
Mill admired de
Tocqueville, and was a passionate opponent of “the tyranny of the
majority”. To protect society against this tyranny he proposed a sing=
le
“very simple” principle which would place a limit on the abilit=
y of
the state to interfere in the life of the individual: “The object of =
this
essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolut=
ely
the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and
control, whether the means to be used by physical force in the form of legal
penalties or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is that t=
he
sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in
interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is
self-protection. That the only purpse for which power can be rightfully
exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to
prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a
sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear beca=
use
it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, becau=
se,
in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are g=
ood
reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading hi=
m,
or entreating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil=
in
case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired=
to
deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part=
of
the conduct of anyone or which it is amenable to society is that which conc=
erns
others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of
right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is
sovereign.”[447]
Mill asserted th=
at
this “Liberty Principle” or “Harm Principle” applied
only to people in “the maturity of their faculties”, not to chi=
ldren
or to “those backward states of society in which the race itself may =
be
considered as in its nonage.”[448] For
“Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things
anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved thr=
ough
free and equal discussion”.[449]
This qualificati=
on
provided a neat justification for the spread of the British Empire among the
pagan nations; and in general, in spite of the fact that Mill was concerned
above all to protect the liberty of the individual against the tyranny of t=
he
majority and popular morality, his theory fitted in remarkably well with the
prejudices of the majority in the England of his time. Thus the English pri=
ded
themselves on their freedom of speech, and their giving refuge to political
exiles of every kind, from Louis XVIII and Louis Napoleon to Herzen and
Bakunin, Kossuth and Marx.[450] No
tyranny of the majority here!
Mill provided a
passionate defence of the widest possible possible freedom of thought and
speech. “First,” he argued, ‘the opinion which it is
attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to
suppress it, of course, deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They h=
ave
no authority to decide the question for all mankind and exclude every other
person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion because
they are sure that it is false is to assume that their certainty is =
the
same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an
assumption of infallibility.”[451]
No: there is a
difference between certainty and the assumption of infallibility. A man may
consider himself to be a wretched sinner and prone to all kinds of errors, =
and
yet be completely certain of some things. All true religious belief is of t=
his
kind – and much false religious belief also. Faith, according to the
definition of the Apostle, is certainty in the existence of invisible reali=
ties
(Hebrews 11.1); it is incompatible with the least doubt. But even if=
one
is not completely certain about something, one may be sufficiently sure to =
act
to censor what one considers a false opinion. Thus a government may not be
completely certain that a certain drug has no serious side effects. But it =
may
still act to ban it, and ban any propaganda in its favour, in the belief th=
at
the risks are sufficiently great to warrant such action. Now Mill may be ab=
le
to accommodate this example with his “Harm Principle”, but not =
on
the grounds that to exclude a certain opinion on the grounds that it is lik=
ely
to be false amounts to a belief in one’s infallibility.
Mill anticipates=
this
objection: “Men and governments must act to the best of their ability.
There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance suffic=
ient
for the purposes of human life. We may, and must assume our opinions to be =
true
for the guidance of our own conduct; and it is assuming no more when we for=
bid
bad men to pervert society by the propagation of opinions which we regard as
false and pernicious.”[452]
But Mill will ha=
ve
none of this; it is only by allowing our opinion to be contested by those w=
ho
think otherwise, he argues, that we come to know whether it is really deser=
ving
of confidence, and hence whether the opposite opinion should be censored.
“The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at =
the
canonization of a saint admits, and listens patiently to, a
‘devil’s advocate’. The holiest of men, it appears, canno=
t be
admitted to posthumous honours until all that the devil could say against h=
im
is known and weighed.”[453]
In practice, this
means that no opinion should ever be censored; “the lists have to be =
kept
open” in case someone appears who will expose the flaw in the accepted
“truth”. And this applies even if the dissenting opinion goes a=
gainst
one’s most treasured and vital convictions concerning God or morality.
For “however positive anyone’s persuasion may be, not only of t=
he
falsity but of the pernicious consequences – not only of the pernicio=
us
consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the
immorality and impiety of an opinion – yet if, in pursuance of that
private judgement, though backed by the public judgement of his country or =
his
contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence, he
assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less objectiona=
ble
or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is=
the
case of all others in which it is most fatal. These are exactly the occasio=
ns
on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes which exc=
ite
the astonishment and horror of posterity.”[454] And
then Mill cites the examples of Socrates and Jesus Christ, who, though the =
most
admirable of men, became the victims of the censoriousness of their generat=
ion.
Mill’s most
powerful argument in favour of complete liberty of speech – an argume=
nt
expressed before him in More’s Utopia and Milton’s Ar=
eopagitica
- is that it is only in an atmosphere of complete intellectual freedom =
that
truth can be truly understood and become well rooted. “Truth gains mo=
re
even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for
himself than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they =
do
not suffer themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form
great thinkers that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is=
as
much and even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain t=
he
mental stature which they are capable of. There have been, and may again be,
great individual thinkers in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But th=
ere
never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere an intellectually acti=
ve
people.”[455] An=
d he
cites the Reformation in Europe, the late eighteenth-century in France and =
the
early nineteenth-century in Germany as admirable periods of intellectual
freedom. “In each, an old mental despotism had been thrown off, and no
new one had yet taken its place. The impulse given at these three periods h=
as
made Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken place
either in the human mind or in institutions may be traced distinctly to one=
or
other of them.”[456]
However, the cit=
ing of
these three periods exposes the false assumptions of Mill’s argument.=
The
Reformation was indeed an intellectually exciting period, when many of the
abuses and falsehoods of the medieval period were exposed. But did it lead =
to a
greater understanding of positive truth? By no means. Similarly, the
late eighteenth century was the period in which the foundations of Church a=
nd
State were so effectively undermined as to lead to the bloodiest and most
mendacious revolution in history to that date, a revolution which most Engl=
ish
liberals abhorred. As to the early nineteenth century in Germany, its most
dominant thinker was Hegel, who, as we shall see, constructed probably the =
most
inflatedly pompous and contradictory – indeed, strictly nonsensica=
l - of
all philosophical systems, which is considered, with some justice, to be an
ancestor of both communism and fascism.
Moreover, in the
one-and-a-half centuries since Mill’s time, although the Anglo-Saxon
world has attained a still greater degree of freedom of thought and speech =
than
prevailed in those three epochs, it has been at the expense of the almost
complete decay of traditional Christian belief and morality, that belief wh=
ich
Mill and the present author agree – albeit, probably, with different
degrees of conviction - in considering to be the truth.
Evidently, freed=
om
does not necessarily lead to truth. Nor did the Truth incarnate ever
claim that it would, declaring rather the reverse relationship, namely, that
“ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (<=
u>John
8.32). And part of the truth consists in the sober recognition that menR=
17;s
minds are fallen, and for much of the time do not even want the trut=
h,
so that if given complete freedom to say what they like, the result will be=
the
falling away of society from truth into the abyss of destruction.
As Timothy Snyde=
r writes,
interpreting the lessons of George Orwell’s 1984 for todayR=
17;s
mass democracies: “The core texts of liberal toleration, such as
Milton’s Areopagitica and Mill’s On Liberty, take=
for
granted that individuals will wish to know the truth. They contend that in =
the
absence of censorship, truth will eventually emerge and be recognised as su=
ch.
But even in democracies this may not always be true.”[457]=
Mill’s arguments in=
favour
of complete freedom of expression rest on the assumption, as he freely
admitted, that the men who are given this freedom are not children or
barbarians. And yet the corruption of mind and heart we associate with the =
word
“barbarian” is present in every single man; this is what we mea=
n by
the term “original sin”. And if men were not very often childre=
n in
mind, the Apostle Paul would not have been forced to say: “Brethren, =
be
not children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be
mature” (I Corinthians 14.20).
James Fitzjames
Stephen, in his Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873) pointed to furt=
her
important flaws in Mill’s argument. Liberty was like fire, he said; it
could be used for good and ill; to assume otherwise was naïve and
dangerous. It was by no means certain that full freedom from interference b=
y others
would lead to greater searching for truth; it could just as easily lead to
idleness and lack of interest in social affairs.
Moreover, writes
Gertrude Himmelfarth, “what disturbed him about Mill’s doctrine=
was
the possibility that its adoption would leave society impotent in those
situations where there was a genuine need for social action. Implicit too w=
as
the possibility that the withdrawal of social sanctions against any particu=
lar
belief or act would be interpreted as a sanctioning of that belief or act, a
licence to do that which society could not prohibit.”[458]
Stephen’s =
line
of argument has been developed in our time by Lord Devlin in his essay enti=
tled
The Enforcement of Morals (1968). “The occasion for DevlinR=
17;s
essay,” writes Himmelfarth, “was the Report of the Wolfenden
Commission recommending the legalization of homosexuality between consenting
adults. Against the Commission’s claim that private morality and
immorality were ‘not the law’s business’, Devlin argued t=
hat ‘the
suppression of vice is as much the law’s business as the suppression =
of
subversive activities; it is not more possible to define a sphere of private
morality than it is to define private subversive activity.”[459]
As we know, the
Wolfenden Commission’s recommendation with regard to homosexuality was
accepted by the English parliament, which demonstrates the power – the
highly destructive power – that the application of Mill’s Princ=
iple
has acquired in our times, a power that Mill himself would probably have
deplored. Indeed, a completely consistent application of the Principle would
probably lead to the sweeping away of prohibitions against such activities =
as
euthanasia, incest and prostitution on the grounds that these are within the
sphere of private morality or immorality and so of no concern to the State.=
But
then, asks Devlin, “if prostitution is… not the law’s
business, what concern has the law with the ponce or the
brotherl-keeper…? The Report recommends that the laws which make these
activities criminal offences should be maintained… and brings them=
230;
under the heading of exploitation…. But in general a ponce exploits a
prostitute no more than an impresario exploits an actress.”[460]
Mill justifies t=
he
prohibition of certain acts, such as public decency, on the grounds that th=
ey
“are a violation of good manners, … coming thus within the cate=
gory
of offences against others”.
And yet, as Jona=
than
Wolff points out, it is difficult to see how such a prohibition can be
justified on the basis of the Harm Principle alone. For “what harm do=
es
‘public indecency’ do? After all, Mill insists that mere offenc=
e is
no harm. Here Mill, without being explicit, seems to allow customary morali=
ty
to override his adherence to the Liberty Principle. Few, perhaps, would
criticize his choice of policy. But it is hard to see how he can render this
consistent with his other views: indeed, he appears to make no serious atte=
mpt
to do so.
“Once we b=
egin
to consider examples of this kind we begin to understand that following
Mill’s ‘once simple principle’ would lead to a society of=
a
kind never seen before, and, perhaps, one which we would never wish to
see…”[461]
And so, while En=
glish
liberalism of the Mills variety carefully sought to protect society both fr=
om
absolutist tyranny of the continental variety, and from the American-style
tyranny of the majority, it ended up delivering society into a series of
tyrannies of the minorities, which is best exemplified by the European Human
Rights Act that is devastating Christian faith and morality in the contempo=
rary
Britain.
This should not
surprise us; for liberalism is in essence a pagan doctrine, owing its origin
more to fifth-century Athens than to any period of Christian history. Mills
extolled the Liberty or Harm Principle not simply because it supposedly
guaranteed freedom from tyranny and the triumph of truth, but because it
fostered that ideal of the human being, vigorous, independent, unafraid of
being different, even eccentric, which he found in Classical Greece. Indeed=
, he
openly rejected the ascetic, Calvinist (that is to say, the Anglican) ideal=
in
favour of the pagan Greek: “There is a different type of human excell=
ence
from the Calvinistic: a conception of humanity as having its nature bestowe=
d on
it for other purposes than merely to be abnegated. ‘Pagan
self-assertion’ is one of the elements of human worth, as well as
‘Christian self-denial’. There is a Greek ideal of
self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of self-government
blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to be a John Knox tha=
n an
Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either; nor would a
Pericles, if we had one in these days, be without anything good which belon=
ged
to John Knox.”[462]
Victorian Religion and
Morality
Since the Englis=
h were
so devoted to material gain, so callous towards the poor (while priding
themselves on their abolition of the slave trade), and so devoted to a pure=
ly
pagan understanding of liberty, one might have expected that there would be=
no
room for religion in their life. And yet the paradox is that the English we=
re
extremely religious. Continental atheism found little response in English
hearts. And if some surprising blasphemies did escape the lips of senior pu=
blic
servants – such as the British consul in Canton’s remark:
“Jesus Christ is Free Trade, and Free Trade is Jesus Christ”[463]
– this was not common. True, Free Trade was probably the real
faith of the English governing classes; but officially England was a
“most Christian” nation, and Anglicanism the only religion a man
aspiring to high office could confess.
“Doubts th=
ere
were aplenty”, writes A.N. Wilson, about various questions. “Bu=
t we
who live in a fragmented society have become like an individual addicted to
psychoanalysis, struggle with our uncertainties, pick at our virtues and vi=
ces
as if they were scabs. The Victorian capacity not to do this, to liv=
e,
very often, with double standards, is what makes so many of them –
individually and collectively – seem to be humbugs and hypocrites.=
221;[464]
One of the quest=
ions
that troubled the Victorians was the question of the relationship between
religion and science, doubts that would become more acute after the publica=
tion
of Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859 (see below). Another=
was
the impact of industrialisation on the spiritual life in a more general sen=
se.
Thus Thomas Carl=
yle
wrote: “Now the Genius of Mechanism smothers [man] worse than any
Nightmare did. In Earth and Heaven he can see nothing but Mechanism; he has
fear for nothing else, hope in nothing else… To me the Universe was a=
ll
void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge,
dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to g=
ring
me limb from limb.”[465]
But whatever the=
ir
doubts, and however great the apparent inconsistencies between their beliefs
and actions, the Victorians were prepared to go to great pains to export th=
eir
religion to other lands, as the efforts of Livingstone in Africa and Lord
Redstock in Russia demonstrate. As late as 1904 the German satirical magazi=
ne Simplicissimus
pointed to this religiosity of the British Empire by comparison with the ot=
her
empires “with a cartoon contrasting the different colonial powers. In=
the
German colony even the giraffes and crocodiles are taught to goose-step. In=
the
French, relations between the races are intimate to the point of indecency.=
In
the Congo the natives are simply roasted over an open fire and eaten by King
Leopold. But British colonies are conspicuously more complex than the rest.
There, the native is force-fed whisky by a businessman, squeezed in a press=
for
every last penny by a soldier and compelled to listen to a sermon by a
missionary…”[466]
The Russian theo=
logian
Alexis Khomiakov was amazed at how silent the streets of London were on a
Sunday, as everyone went to church. And he wrote: “Germany has in rea=
lity
no religion at all but the idolatry of science; France has no serious longi=
ngs
for truth, and little sincerity; England with its modest science and its
serious love of religious truth might [seem] to give some hopes…̶=
1;[467]
Of course, Engla=
nd did
not have the true faith, which is only in the East, in the Orthodox
Church. And yet the Oxford movement excited Khomiakov with hopes of a genui=
ne rapprochement between Anglicans and Orthodox (=
see
next chapter). In the midst of her “Babylonian” materialism, as
exemplified above all by the 1851 Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in
London, England seemed to have “higher thoughts”: “Englan=
d,
in my opinion, has never been more worthy of admiration than this year. The
Babylonian enterprise of the Exhibition and its Crystal Palace, which shows
London to be the true and recognised capital of Universal Industry, would h=
ave
been sufficient to engross the attention and intellectual powers of any oth=
er
country; but England stands evidently above its own commercial wonders. Dee=
per
interests agitate her, higher thoughts direct her mental energy…̶=
1;[468]
In the end, as t=
he
Oxford movement petered out (Khomiakov’s friend, William Palmer, join=
ed
Catholicism, not Orthodoxy), and England joined with “insincere”
France and infidel Turkey in the Crimean War against Holy Russia,
Khomiakov’s admiration turned to disillusion and anger. In his last y=
ears
he may well have felt closer in his estimate of England to that of a famous
compatriot of his, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who was appalled by his visit to Lon=
don
in 1862. “On the streets he saw people wearing beautiful clothes in
expensive carriages, side by side with others in filth and rags. The Thames=
was
poisoned, the air polluted; the city seemed marked by joyless drinking and =
wife
abuse. The writer was particularly horrified by child prostitution:
“’He=
re in
the Haymarket, I saw mothers who brought along their young daughters and ta=
ught
them their occupation. And these twelve-year-old girls took you by the hand=
and
asked to be accompanied. One evening, in the swarm of people I saw a little
girl dressed in rags, dirty, barefoot, emaciated and battered. Through her =
rags
I could see that her body was covered with bloody stripes. She wandered
senseless in the crowd… perhaps she was hungry. No one paid her any
attention. But what struck me most was her sad expression and the hopelessn=
ess
of her misery. It was rather unreal and terribly painful to look at the des=
pair
and cursed existence of this small creature.’
“When he v=
isited
the London World’s Fair with ‘civilization’s shining
triumphs’, Dostoyevsky again found himself possessed by feelings of f=
ear
and dejection. Appalled, he recoiled from the hubris that had created the
Crystal Palace’s ‘colossal decorations’. Here was somethi=
ng
taken to its absolute limit, he maintained, here man’s prideful spirit
had erected a temple to an idol of technology:
“’Th=
is is
a Biblical illustration, this speaks of Babylon, in this a prophet of the
Apocalypse is come to life. You feel that it would take unbelievable spirit=
ual
strength not to succumb to this impression, not to bow before this consumma=
te
fact, not to acknowledge this reality as our ideal and mistake Baal for
God.’”[469]
Dostoyevsky agre=
ed
with Khomiakov that the English were sincerely religious. But he saw through
their religiosity, and had no hesitation in calling it “atheism”=
;,
because he saw in it ultimately the worship of man wrapped in the trappings=
of
the worship of God. It was Auguste Comte who had introduced the idea of a
“Religion of Humanity”, and English thinkers such as Mill were
impressed by it, seeing in it no contradiction with their own Anglicanism. =
Dostoyevsky
noted this, and much later, in 1876, he wrote: “In their overwhelming
majority, the English are extremely religious people; they are thirsting for
faith and are continually seeking it. However, instead of religion –
notwithstanding the state ‘Anglican’ religion – they are
divided into hundreds of sects…. Here, for instance, is what an obser=
ver
who keeps a keen eye on these things in Europe, told me about the character=
of
certain altogether atheistic doctrines and sects in England: ‘You ent=
er
into a church: the service is magnificent, the vestments are expensive;
censers; solemnity; silence; reverence among those praying. The Bible is re=
ad;
everybody comes forth and kisses the Holy Book with tears in his eyes, and =
with
affection. And what do you think this is? This is the church of atheists. W=
hy,
then, do they kiss the Bible, reverently listening to the reading from it a=
nd
shedding tears over it? – This is because, having rejected God, they
began to worship ‘Humanity’. Now they believe in Humanity; they
deify and adore it. And what, over long centuries, has been more sacred to
mankind than this Holy Book? – Now they worship it because of its lov=
e of
mankind and for the love of it on the part of mankind; it has benefited man=
kind
during so many centuries – just like the sun, it has illuminated it; =
it
has poured out on mankind its force, its life. And “even though its s=
ense
is now lost”, yet loving and adoring mankind, they deem it impossible=
to
be ungrateful and to forget the favours bestowed by it upon humanity…=
’
“In this t=
here
is much that is touching and also much enthusiasm. Here there is actual
deification of humankind and a passionate urge to reveal their love. Still,
what a thirst for prayer, for worship; what a craving for God and faith amo=
ng
these atheists, and how much despair and sorrow; what a funeral procession =
in
lieu of a live, serene life, with its gushing spring of youth, force and ho=
pe!
But whether it is a funeral or a new and coming force – to many people
this is a question.”[470]
Dostoyevsky then quotes from his no=
vel, A
Raw Youth, from the “dream of a Russian of our times – the
Forties – a former landowner, a progressive, a passionate and noble
dreamer, side by side with our Great Russian breadth of life in practice. T=
his
landowner also has no faith and he, too, adores humanity ‘as it befit=
s a
Russian progressive individual.’ He reveals his dream about future
mankind when there will vanish from it every conception of God, which, in h=
is
judgement, will inevitably happen on earth.
“’I
picture to myself, my dear,’ he began, with a pensive smile, ‘t=
hat
the battle is over and that the strife has calmed down. After maledictions,
lumps of mud and whistles, lull has descended and men have found themselves=
alone,
as they wished it; the former great idea has abandoned them; the great
wellspring of energy, that has thus far nourished them, has begun to recede=
as
a lofty, receding Sun, but this, as it were, was mankind’s last day. =
And
suddenly men grasped that they had been left all alone, and forthwith they =
were
seized with a feeling of great orphanhood. My dear boy, never was I able to
picture people as having grown ungrateful and stupid. Orphaned men would at
once begin to draw themselves together closer and with more affection; they=
would
grasp each other’s hands, realizing that now they alone constituted
everything to one another. The grand idea of immortality would also vanish,=
and
it would become necessary to replace it, and all the immense over-abundance=
of
love for Him who, indeed, had been Immortality, would in every man be focus=
sed
on nature, on the universe, on men, on every particle of matter. They would
start loving the earth and life irresistibly, in the measure of the gradual
realization of their transiency and fluency, and theirs would now be a
different love – not like the one in days gone by. They would discern=
and
discover in nature such phenomena and mysteries as had never heretofore been
suspected, since they would behold nature with new eyes, with the look of a
lover gazing upon his inamorata. They would be waking up and hastening to
embrace one another, hastening to love, comprehending that days are short a=
nd
that this is all that is left to them…’
“Isn’=
;t
there here, in this fantasy, something akin to that actually existent
‘Atheists’ Church’?”[471]
Still more puzzl=
ing
than Victorian religion was Victorian morality. English liberalism made a
fetish of liberty, both political and economic, and the Anglican Church
tolerated a wide range of beliefs in a most liberal fashion. One might
therefore have expected the morals of the English to have been very loose at
this time, as it had been at other periods in their history.
But here, writes
Mosse, “very little freedom was allowed. For Liberals accepted and
furthered that change in morality which came about at the turn of the centu=
ry.
It is important, therefore, to discuss this morality in connection with
liberalism, even though it became the dominant morality in England generally
and in much of Europe as well. Liberal freedom… was severely
circumscribed and restricted by this development.
“It is dif=
ficult
to analyze the moral pattern which accompanied liberal thought. There is no
doubt that the turn of the century saw a change in the moral tone of societ=
y,
which is easily illustrated. Sir Walter Scott’s aged aunt asked him to
procure for her some of the books she had enjoyed in her youth during the
previous century. Sir Walter did as he was bid and later when he ventured to
hope that she had enjoyed this recapturing of her youth her answer greatly
surprised him. His aunt blushed at the mention of the books and allowed that
she had destroyed them because they were not fit reading. Similarly, in
Germany, a lady sitting next to the writer Brentano told him how much she h=
ad
enjoyed a play he had written in his youth. How startled she must have been
when the author, instead of being pleased, replied that as a woman and moth=
er
she should have been ashamed to read such a work. This change is what Sir
Harold Nicolson has characterised as the ‘onslaught of
respectability’. It was, as these examples show, quite rapid, almost
within one generation.
“What lay =
behind
this tightening up of morality? Only tentative answers can be given, for as=
yet
little is known about this phenomenon. It seems certain that the evangelical
movement in England, the strongest element in nonconformity, and the pietis=
tic
movements in Europe had a direct influence on the morality of the age. Both
these movements had remained outside the mainstream of the Enlightenment; b=
oth
were opposed to its main tenets. It is often forgotten that the eighteenth
century witnessed a religious revival even while the ph=
ilosophes were writing their enlightened
tracts. This revival stressed piety, not the piety of Church attendance but=
the
piety of the heart. Dogma had no great interest for either the Wesley broth=
ers
in England or Count Zinzendorf in Germany; true conversion of the spirit was
the center of their religious thought. Such piety required a casting off of=
the
worldly frivolities. Especially in England it revived the Puritan idea of l=
ife
as a struggle between the world and the spirit, between the lusts of the fl=
esh
and dedication to one’s calling.
“Two other
factors strengthened this reawakened moral passion. There was a moral react=
ion
against the French Revolution and its antireligious bent. Madame de Sta&eum=
l;l
had seen in the Reign of Terror a moral failing on the part of the people; =
many
Englishmen linked the events of the French Revolution to the prevalence of
immorality in that nation. Men and women of the nobility and middle classes
called for moral reform at home in order that Revolutionary immorality migh=
t be
better withstood in the struggle between the two nations. Pamphlets and dia=
ries
give ample evidence of an attempted reform of manners. Frivolity, worldly a=
nd
sexual excesses were regarded as unworthy of a nation engaged in a life and
death struggle with forces which symbolized all that was immoral. The
Evangelicals in England benefited from this feeling of distaste. Sunday
observances were revived; frivolity was taken as a sign of levity in a time=
of
serious crisis. William Wilberforce persuaded King George III to issue a ro=
yal
proclamation in 1787 which condemned vice. Considering the immoral tone of =
his
sons, this could not have lacked irony.
“The second
factor, associated with the expanding economy, was the rapid rise within the
social hierarchy of the newly rich. This self-assertive and ambitious
bourgeoisie brought with them a dedication to hard work and a sense of the
superiority of the values of the self-made man to those of the old aristocr=
acy.
These values blended in with the revived Puritan impetus exemplified by the
evangelical movement. Never a part of the idle and sophisticated aristocrac=
y,
these men, through the increasing fluidity of English class lines, now
infiltrated that class. No wonder that Edmund Burke lamented the vanished
‘unbought grace of life’ of a previous age. Now the grace of
membership in the upper classes was bought and that, in itself, created a
different attitude toward life. Piety, moral revulstion against the French
Revolution, and the attitudes of the bourgeoisie all contributed to the new
moral tone. This was not confined to England; such conditions were present =
in
all of western Europe, but it was England which best exemplified these moral
attitudes, for they fitted in with liberal thought which now took up and
furthered this morality as suited to its ideology in the age of the Industr=
ial
Revolution. Individualism stood in the forefront combined with the kind of
toughness which made for victory in the struggle for existence. What was ne=
eded
was sobriety, hard work, and an emphasis on action. Such a life exemplified=
the
true Christian spirit and on the basis of the individuality of one’s =
own
character led to self-fulfilment.
“Two passa=
ges
from Charles Kingsley’s famous novel Westward Ho! (1855)
demonstrate the conception of this new attitude by a leading Evangelical. T=
he
duty of man was to be bold against himself, as one of the book’s hero=
es
explained to his young companion: ‘To conquer our fancies and our own
lusts and our ambitions in the sacred name of duty; this is to be truly bra=
ve,
and truly strong; for he who cannot rule himself, how can he rule his crew =
or
his fortunes?’ What the Puritans had designated their
‘calling’ was here named duty. The individualism involved was
brought out further in another passage from Kingsley’s book. There we=
re
two sorts of people: one trying to do good according to certain approved ru=
les
he had learned by ear, and the other not knowing whether he was good or not,
just doing the right thing because the Spirit of God was within him. It was
this sort of piety which became fashionable at the turn of the century. The=
contemplative
side of pietism gave way to a piety of action. This transformation was in t=
une
with the experiences of the commercial and industrial classes, though
seventeenth-century Puritans had already stated repeatedly that ‘acti=
on
is all’.
“This acti=
on was
exemplified by what the Victorians called the ‘gospel of work’.=
As
Carlyle put it: ‘…. Not what I have but what I do is my
kingdom.’ It was in work that duty was exemplified. John Henry Newman
shared this emphasis on work: ‘We are not here that we might go to be=
d at
night, and get up in the morning, toil for our bread, eat and drink, laugh =
and
joke, sin when we have a mind and reform when we are tired of sinning, rear=
a
family and die.’ Work had to be done in the right spirit: the service=
of
God in one’s secular calling.
“Samuel
Smiles’s Self Help (1859), which propagandised this morality a=
nd
its application to work, was the most successful book of the century –
over a quarter of a million copies were sold by 1905. Its popularity was as
great outside England as within the country. Garibaldi was a great admirer =
of
the book, as was the Queen of Italy. In Japan it was the rage under the tit=
le European
Decision and Character Book. The mayor of Buenos Aires compared Smiles,
surprisingly, to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Quite rightly these underdeveloped
countries saw in Smiles’s book a reflection of attitudes which were
making an important contribution to the successful industrialization of
England.
“Thje aim =
of Self
Help was to aid the working classes in improving themselves so as to re=
ach
the top. This path was marked by the improvement of the individual characte=
r of
those who desired to be a success in life. ‘The crown and glory of li=
fe
is character.’ What this character should be Smiles illustrated throu=
gh
examples of men who raised themselves to fame and fortune. Character had to=
be
formed by morals, for to Smiles, social and economic problems were really
problems fo morality. When he talked about thrift and saving it was the mor=
al
aspect of self-reliance and restraint which appealed to him and not the
economic consequences of such practices. Character was also shaped by the
competitive struggle – stop competition and you stop the struggle for
individualism. This struggle had to be conducted in a ‘manly way̵=
7;
if success was to follow. He exhorted the workers to become gentlemen, for =
this
meant the acquisition of a keen sense of honor, scrupulously avoiding mean
actions. ‘His law is rectitude – action in right lines.’ =
Here
was a rooted belief in a moral code as the sole road to worldly
success…”[472]
Yes, Victorian
morality was the road to worldly success. And as such it was supremely worl=
dly.
And hypocritical. For these successful self-made men who abhorred the sligh=
test
manifestation of sexuality in their womenfolk poured into London’s
brothels in vast numbers. And while calling on the working class to help
themselves, they made sure that they did not themselves help them. Not that
there were not many charities in England at the time – indeed, this w=
as
the age of charities par excellence. But for many this was but anoth=
er
chance to flaunt their wealth and the “character” that had gain=
ed
them their wealth. The words of the one true Teacher of morality apply well=
to
of the Victorians as a whole: “Verily I say unto you: they have their
reward…” (Matthew 6.5)…
English
Self-Help
In 1844 Engels
published The Condition of the Working Class in England, the first m=
ajor
exposé of the terrible plight of the English proletariat. Marx built=
on
his work to argue that the workers would not better their lot through helpi=
ng
themselves, and still less through receiving help from governments or
employers, but through revolution. At first it seemed that the worke=
rs
agreed…
Thus the result =
of
increasing poverty for the great majority in the 1840s, writes Hobsbawm,
“was social revolution in the form of spontaneous risings of the urban
and industrial poor”, which “made the revolution of 1848 on the
continent, the vast Chartist movement in Britain. Nor was discontent confin=
ed
to the labouring poor. Small and inadaptable businessmen, petty-bourgeois,
special sections of the economy, were also the victims of the Industrial
Revolution and of its ramifications. Simple-minded labourers reacted to the=
new
system by smashing the machines which they thought responsible for their
troubles; but a surprisingly large body of local businessmen and farmers
sympathized profoundly with these Luddite activities of their labourers,
because they too saw themselves as victims of a diabolical minority of self=
ish
innovators. The exploitation of labour which kept its incomes at subsistence
level, thus enabling the rich to accumulate the profits which financed
industrialization (and their own ample comforts), antagonized the proletari=
an.
However, another aspect of this diversion of national income from the poor =
to
the rich, from consumption to investment, also antagonized the small
entrepreneur. The great financiers, the tight community of home and foreign
‘fund-holders’ who received what all paid in taxes… -
something like 8 per cent of the entire national income – were perhaps
even more unpopular among small businessmen, farmers and the like than among
labourers, for these knew enough about money and credit to feel a personal =
rage
at their disadvantage. It was all very well for the rich, who could raise a=
ll
the credit they needed, to clamp rigid deflation and monetary orthodoxy on =
the
economy after the Napoleonic Wars; it was the little man who suffered, and =
who,
in all countries and at all times in the nineteenth century demanded easy
credit and financial unorthodoxy. Labour and the disgruntled petty-bourgeoi=
s on
the verge of toppling over into the unpropertied abyss, therefore shared co=
mmon
discontents. These in turn united them in the mass movements of
‘radicalism’, ‘democracy’ or
‘republicanism’ of which the British Radicals, the French
Republicans and the American Jacksonian Democrats were the most formidable
between 1815 and 1848.”[473]
Although violent
collectivist reaction to the excesses of liberal individualism seemed
inevitable, there were still some who believed in the path of peaceful refo=
rm
and the importance of individuals. Foremost among these was the Welsh
manufacturer Robert Owen.
“His
creed,” writes Sir Isaiah Berlin, “was summarised in the senten=
ce
inscribed at the head of his journal, The New Moral World: ‘Any
general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the
most enlightened, may be given to any community, even the world at large, by
the application of proper means, which means are to a great extent at the
command and under the control of those who have influence in the affairs of
men.’ He had triumphantly demonstrated the truth of his theory by
establishing model conditions in his own cotton mills in New Lanark, limiti=
ng
working hours, and creating provision for health and a savings fund. By this
means he increased the productivity of his factory and raised immediately t=
he
standard of living of his workers, and, what was even more impressive to the
outside world, trebled his own fortune. New Lanark became a centre of
pilgrimage for kings and statesmen, and, as the first successful experiment=
in
peaceful co-operation between labour and capital, had a considerable influe=
nce
on the history both of socialism and of the working class. His later attemp=
ts
at practical reform were less successful. Owen, who died in deep old age in=
the
middle of the nineteenth century, was the last survivor of the classical pe=
riod
of rationalism, and, his faith unshaken by repeated failures, believed until
the end of his life in the omnipotence of education and the perfectibility =
of
man.”[474]
However, Owen=
217;s
later schemes failed, and kind-hearted entrepreneurs remained few and far
between. Therefore only state action could solve the problem, thought John
Stuart Mill – a writer more renowned, as we have seen, for his
development of the theory of liberalism. But it was while revising “h=
is Principles
of Political Economy,” writes Barzun, “that Mill broke with=
the
liberal school by asserting that the distribution of the national product c=
ould
be redirected at will and that it should be so ordered for the general welf=
are.
That final phrase, perpetually redefined, was a forecast…. It was [it=
s]
underlying idea – essential socialism – that ultimately triumph=
ed,
taking the twin form of Communism and the Welfare State, either under the
dictatorship of a party and its leader or under the rule of a democratic
parliament and democracy.”[475]
French
Socialism
However, the Eng=
lish liberal
solutions of self-help and education (Owen) and state redistribution of wea=
lth
(Mill) were rejected by the more radical thinkers on the continent. The most
radical among them was the anarchist Proudhon, who anticipated the nihilist=
s of
the following generation by calling for the destruction of all autho=
rities,
even God. “’The Revolution is not atheistic, in the stri=
ct
sense of the word… it does not deny the absolute, it eliminates
it…’ ‘The first duty of man, on becoming intelligent and
free, is to continually hunt the idea of God out of his mind and conscience.
For God, if he exists, is essentially hostile to our nature… Every st=
ep
we take in advance is a victory in which we crush Divinity.’
“Humanity must be made to see that ‘God if there is a God, is i=
ts
enemy.’”[476]
It was Proudhon =
who
uttered the famous words: “What is property? Property is theft.R=
21; Marx disagreed with the =
latter
statement insofar as it presupposed real rights in property. Nevertheless, =
he
admitted the importance of Proudhon’s analysis of private property
relations. “The two forces,” writes Berlin, “which Proudh=
on
conceived as fatal to social justice and the brotherhood of man were the
tendency towards the accumulation of capital, which led to the continual in=
crease
of inequalities of wealth, and the tendency directly connected with it, whi=
ch
openly united political authority with economic control, and so was designe=
d to
secure a growth of a despotic plutocracy under the guise of free liberal
institutions. The state became, according to him, an instrument designed to
dispossess the majority for the benefit of a small minority, a legalised fo=
rm
of robbery…”[477]
Other French thi= nkers tried to be more constructive. Among them was the Comte de Saint-Simon, who= saw the salvation of society in its rationalist reconstruction on the basis of science.
Talmon writes:
“Saint-Simon’s earliest pamphlet, A Letter from a Citizen of
Geneva, contains the bizarre scheme of a Council of Newton. The finest
savants of Europe were to assemble in a mausoleum erected in honour of the
great scientist, and deliberate on the problems of society. The author ther=
eby
gave picturesque expression to his view that in the French Revolution popul=
ar
sovereignty had proved itself as fumbling, erratic and wrong as the divine
right of kings, and that the tenets of rationalism about the rights of man,
liberty and equality, had shown themselves just as irrelevant to man’s
problems as theological doctrine. Not being rooted in any certainty compara=
ble
to that of science, old and new political ideas alike became only a pretext=
for
the will of one set of men to dominate all others – which was all, in
fact, that politics had ever been.
“What had =
made
men yield to such palpable error for so long and then caused Saint-Simon to=
see
through them at precisely that moment? Unlike eighteenth-century philosophe=
rs
– such as his masters Turgot and Condorcet – Saint-Simon does n=
ot
invoke the march of progress, the victory of enlightenment, or the sudden
resolve of men. He points to the importance assumed by scientific advance,
technological development and problems of industrial production, all based =
upon
scientific precision, verifiable facts and quantitative measurements which =
left
no room for human arbitrariness.
“In the pa=
st,
mythological and theological modes of thought, medieval notions of chivalry,
metaphysical preoccupations and so on were the accompaniment – or, as
Saint-Simon more often seems to suggest, the matrix – of the economic
conditions and the social-political order of the day. In brief, frames of m=
ind,
modes of production and social political systems hang together, and develop
together, and the stages of such overall development cannot be skipped. The
industrial system which the nineteenth century was ushering in had its
beginnings in the Middle Ages. Within the womb of a civilization dominated =
by
priests and warriors, shaped by values and expectations not of this world,
geared for war and inspired by theatrical sentiments of chivalry, there beg=
an a
mighty collective effort to fashion things, instruments and values designed=
to
enhance men’s lives here and now: industrial production, economic
exchange and scientific endeavour. The communes had at first no thought of
subverting the feudal-theological order, within which they made their earli=
est
steps – firstly because they were as yet too weak for such a revolt, =
and
secondly because they did not value the external accoutrements of power. Th=
ey
believed only in positive tangible goods and solid achievements in the
social-economic and scientific domain.
“This was =
the
cause of a divorce between content and form. While in external appearance
warriors and priests still held the reins of authority, real power was
increasingly concentrated in the hands of the productive classes. These
classes, whose position, indeed whose very existence, lacked acknowledged
legitimacy in the official scheme of things, developed a special ethos. Kno=
wing
the ruling classes to be incompetent to deal with matters of decisive impor=
tance
to them, the bourgeoisie resored to a theory of laissez-faire which
condemned all government interference and glorified individual initiative a=
nd
the interplay of economic interests. In order to clothe this class interest=
in
theoretical garb, bourgeois spokesmen evolved the doctrine of the natural
rights of man and the theory of checks and balances and division of power.
These designed to curb the power-drives of the feudal forces, and indeed
succeeded in undermining the self-assurance of the aristocratic order.
“In
Saint-Simon’s view, the French Revolution signified not so much the
triumph of rationalist-democratic ideas as the total victory of the product=
ive
classes and the final swamping of feudal-theological values by positive for=
ces.
But this fundamental fact was distorted and obscured by those metaphysicians
and lawyers who, having played an important part in helping the industrial
classes to win, mistook their secondary role for a mission to impose their
ideas and their rule upon society. Instead of stepping aside and letting the
imperatives of industrial endeavour shape new institutions, they set out to
impose their conjectural ideas upon society, side-tracking the real issues =
and
befogging them with rhetoric and sophistry. In effect their intention was n=
ot
to abolish the old system which divided society into rulers and ruled, but =
to
continue it, only substituting themselves for the feudal lords; in other wo=
rds,
to rule by force. For where the relationship between rulers and ruled is not
grounded in the nature of things as is that, for example, between doctor and
patient, teacher and pupil – that is, on division of functions –
the only reality is the rule of man over man based on force. This form of
relationship dated from the days when man was considered to need protection=
by
superiors because he was weak, lowly and ignorant, or had to be kept from
mischief because he was riotous and savage. It was no longer justified since
the Revolution had proved that man had come of age. It was time for governm=
ent,
in other words the state, to make room for an administration of things,
and conscious, sustained planning of the national economy. The need to keep=
law
and order, allegedly always so pressing and relentless, would be reduced to=
a
minimum when social relations were derived from objective necessities. The
whole problem was thus reduced to the discovery of the ‘force of
things’, the requirements of the mechanism of production. Once these =
had
become the measure of all things, there would be no room for the distinction
between rulers in the traditional political sense. The nexus of all human
relationships would be the bodn between expert knowledge and experience on =
the
one hand, and discipleship, fulfilment of necessary tasks, on the other. The
whole question of liberty and equality would then assume a quite different
significance.
“In fact m=
en
would no longer experience the old acute craving for liberty and equality. A
scientific apportioning of functions would ensure perfect cohesion of the
totality, and the high degree of integration would draw the maximum potenti=
al
fomr every participant in the collective effort. Smooth, well-adjusted
participation heightens energy and stills any sense of discomfort or malais=
e.
There is no yearning for freedom and no wish to break away in an orchestra,=
a
choir, a rowing boat. Where parts do not fit and abilities go to waste, the=
re
is a sense of frustration and consequently oppression, and man longs to get
away. The question of equality would not arise once inequality was the outc=
ome
of a necessary and therefore just division of tasks. There is no inequality
where there is no domination for the sake of domination.
“Such a pe=
rfect
integration remained to be discovered. Pursuing his quest, Saint-Simon stum=
bled
upon socialism, and then found himself driven to religion. W=
aste,
frustration, deprivation, oppression were the denial of both cohesion of the
whole and the self-expression of the individual. Those scourges were epitom=
ized
in the existence of the poorest and most numerous class – the workers.
And so what started with Saint-Simon as a quest for positive certainty and
efficiency gradually assumed the character of a crusade on behalf of the
disinherited, the underprivileged and frustrated. The integrated industrial
productive effort began to appear as conditioned upon the abolition of pove=
rty,
and dialectically the abolition of poverty now seemed the real goal of a fu=
lly
integrated collective endeavour.
“But was t=
he
removal of friction and waste enough to ensure the smooth working of the wh=
ole?
And would rational understanding suffice to ensure wholehearted participati=
on
in the collective effort? Saint-Simon was led to face at a very early stage=
of
socialism the question of incentives. He felt that mechanical, clever
contrivances, intellectual comprehension and enlightened self-interest were=
in
themselves insufficient as incentives and motives. And so the positivist,
despising mythical, theological and metaphysical modes of thought, by degre=
es
evolved into a mystical Romantic. He became acutely aware of the need for
incentives stronger, more impelling and compelling than reason and utility.=
In
a sense he had already come to grips with the problem in the famous distinc=
tion
between organic and critical epochs in history, a distinction which was
destined to become to important in the theory of his disciple, Auguste Comt=
e.
“These two=
types
of epoch alternate in history. There is a time of harmony and concord, like=
the
pre-Socratic age in Greece and the Christian Middle Ages, and there are tim=
es
of disharmony and discord, like post-Socratic Greece and the modern age, wh=
ich
began with the Reformation, evolved into rationalism, and came to a climax =
in
the French Revolution. The organic ages are period of a strong and general
faith, when the basic assumptions comprise a harmonious pattern and are
unquestioningly taken for granted. There are no dichotomies of any kind, and
classes live in harmony. In the critical ages there is no longer any consen=
sus
about basic assumptions; beliefs clash, traditions are undermined, there is=
no
accepted image of the world. Society is torn by class war and selfishness is
rampant.
“The cryin=
g need
of the new industrial age was for a new religion. There must be a central
principle to ensure integration of all the particular truths and a single
impulse for all the diverse spiritual endeavours. The sense of unity of life
must be restored, and every person must be filled with such an intense
propelling and life-giving sense of belonging to that unity, that he would =
be
drawn to the centre by the chains of love, and stimulated by a joyous
irresistible urge to exert himself on behalf of all.
“Saint-Sim=
on
called this new religion of his ‘Nouveau Christianisme’. It was=
to
be a real fulfillment of the original promise of Christianity, and was to
restore that unity of life which traditional Christianity – decayed a=
nd
distorted – had done its best to deny and destroy. The concept of
original sin had led to a pernicious separation of mankind into a hierarchy=
of
the perfect and the mass of simple believers. This carried with it the
distinction between theory and practice, the perfect bliss above and the va=
le
of tears below; the result was compromise and reconciliation with – in
effect, approval of – evil here and now.” [478]
Saint-Simon redu=
ced
Christianity to Christ’s words: “Love thy neighbour”.
“Applied to modern society,” writes Edmund Wilson, this princip=
le
“compels us to recognize that the majority of our neighbours are
destitute and wretched. The emphasis has now been shifted from the master m=
ind
at the top of the hierarchy to the ‘unpropertied man’ at the
bottom; but the hierarchy still stands as it was, since Saint-Simon’s
whole message is still his own peculiar version of the principle of nobl=
esse
oblige. The propertied classes must be made to understand that an
improvement in the condition of the poor will mean an improvement in their
condition, too; the savants must be shown that their interests are
identical with those of the masses. Why not go straight to the people? he m=
akes
the interlocutor ask in his dialogue. Because we must try to prevent them f=
rom
resorting to violence against their governments; we must try to persuade the
other classes first.
“And he en=
ds
– the last words he ever wrote – with an apostrophe to the Holy
Alliance, the combination of Russia, Prussia and Austria which had been
established upon the suppression of Napoleon. It was right, says Saint-Simo=
n,
to get rid of Napoleon, but what have they themselves but the sword? They h=
ave
increased taxes, protected the rich; their church and their courts, and the=
ir
very attempts at progress, depend on nothing but force; they keep two milli=
on
men under arms.
“’Princess!’ he concludes, ‘hear the voice of
God, which speaks to you through my mouth: Become good Christians again, th=
row
off the belief that the hired armies, the nobility, the heretical clergy, t=
he
corrupt judges, constitute your principal supporters; unite in the name of
Christianity and learn to accomplish the duties which Christianity imposes =
on
the powerful; remember that Christianity command them to devote their energ=
ies
to bettering as rapidly as possible the lot of the very poor!’”=
[479]
Saint-Simon is an
important transitional figure, a link between the Masonic visionaries of the
French revolution and the “scientific” vision of the Marxists. =
The
importance he attached to economic factors and means of production formed o=
ne
of the most important strands in Marxism – although Marx himself dism=
issed
him as a “Utopian socialist”. That he could still think in term=
s of
a “New Christianity” shows his attachment to the religious mode=
s of
thought of earlier ages, although, of course, his Christianity is a very
distorted form of the faith (he actually took Freemasonry as his ideal).
Marx would purge=
the
religious element and make the economic element the foundation of his theor=
y,
while restoring the idea of Original Sin in a very secularized form. As for=
the
incentives which Saint-Simon thought so necessary and which he thought to
supply with his “New Christianity”, Marx found those through his
adoption of the idea of a scientifically established progress to a secular
Paradise, whose joyous inevitability he borrowed from the dialectical histo=
ricism
of one of the most corrupting thinkers in the history of thought – He=
gel.
One of
Another Utopian
Socialist figure was Charles Fourier. He believed in the old chiliastic dre=
am
of Paradise on earth, in which men would live to be 144 years old.[481] He=
had
other dreams, too: “he believed that the world would last precisely
80,000 years and that by the end of that time every soul would have traveled
810 times between the earth and certain other planets which he regarded as
certainly inhabited, and would have experienced a succession of existences =
to
the precise number of 1626![482]
“His start=
ing
point,” according to Talmon, “was very much that of Rousseau. M=
an,
he believed, had come out of the hands of nature a good and noble being. The
institutions of civilization had brought about his undoing. Greed and avari=
ce were
the root of all evil. They had created the existing dichotomies between pri=
vate
morality and commercial and political codes of behaviour, between things
preached and ways practiced. Morose, ascetical teachings about the evil
character of the natural urges were motivated by the avarice and ambition of
the greed and strong, who wished to instill into their victims a sense of s=
in,
and with it humility and readiness to bear privations, perform the dirtiest
jobs, and receive the whip. The attempt to stifle natural impulses had the
effect of turning the energy contained in them into channels of perversion =
and
aggressiveness.
“Such impu=
lses
were inflamed by the spectacle of avarice rampant and all-pervasive, in spi=
te
of the official ascetic teachings. Fourier may have moralized, may have dre=
amed
of the waters of the oceans turning into lemonade and of lions changed into
modern aeroplanes and carrying men over vast distance; but his homilies and
dreams are buttressed by a very acute analysis and critique of commercial, =
if not
quite capitalist, civilization. He also analysed history into a succession =
of
social economic stages, and sketched a historical dialectic from which Marx=
and
Engels could – and it seems did – learn something.
“Here, how=
ever,
we are concerned with Fourier’s contribution to the problem of
organization and freedom. In his view, the state and its laws were instrume=
nts
of exploitation, and any large centralized state was bound to develop into =
an
engine of tyranny. Fourier therefore held that the state ought to be replac=
ed
by a network of small direct democracies. Each should enjoy full autonomy a=
nd
be at once a wholly integrated economic unit and a closely-knit political
community. In these ‘phalanstères’ all would be co-partn=
ers,
everybody would know all the other members (Fourier laid down a maximum of
1800), and decisions would be reached by common consent. By these means men
would never be subjected to some anonymous, abstract power above and outside
them.
“Fourier a=
lso
tackled the problem of reconciling integration with self-expression. He arg=
ued
that it was absured to expect to eliminate the love of property, desire to
excel, penchant for intrigue or craving for change, let alone sex and glutt=
ony.
Such an attempt was sure to engender frustration and anti-social phenomena.=
And
there was no escape from the fact that people had different characteristics=
and
urges of different intensity. Happily, benevolent nature had taken care of =
that
by creating different sorts of characteristics and passions, like symphonic
compositions in which the most discordant elements are united into a meanin=
gful
totality. The task was therefore reduced to the art of composing the right
groups of characteristics – perfectly integrated partnerships based on
the adjustment of human diversities. It followed that the other task was to
manipulate the human passions so cleverly that they would become levers of
co-operative effort and increased production instead of impediments to
collaboration. (This implies an ardent faith in education and environmental
influence comparable to Robert Owen’s.
[483]=
)=
To take
first the love of property: it would not be abolished or made equal. There
would be a secured minimum of private property, but beyond that it would de=
pend
on investment, contribution, type of work, degree of fatige and boredom, an=
d so
on, with progressively decreasing dividends. Persons of diverse characteris=
tics
joined into one group would stimulate each other, and competition between
groups would be strongly encouraged. The paramount aim was to turn labour i=
nto
a pleasure instead of a curse. In order to obviate the danger of boredom,
spells of work would be short and changes in the type of labour frequent. G=
angs
of children would be set the task of doing the dirty jobs in a spirit of jo=
yous
emulation. Finally, industry would be combined with an Arcadian type of
agriculture.
“This is
Fourier’s solution to the dilemmas which have plagued our common sense
for so long: who will do the disagreeable jobs in a perfectly harmonious so=
ciety,
and what will be the relationship between superiors and inferiors in it?=
221;[484]
Before leaving t= he French thinkers, we should briefly take note of the great historian Michele= t. In the first half of his book, The People, written shortly before the 1848 revolution, he analysed industrial society in a way that anticipated M= arx, but broader in scope and more balanced in its vision. “Taking the cla= sses one by one, the author shows how all are tied into the social-economic web – each, exploiting or being exploited, and usually both extortionist = and victim, generating by the very activities which are necessary to win its survival irreconcilable antagonisms with its neighbors, yet unable by climb= ing higher in the scale to escape the general degradation. The peasant, eternal= ly in debt to the professional moneylender or the lawyer and in continual fear= of being dispossessed, envies the industrial worker. The factory worker, virtu= ally imprisoned and broken in will by submission to his machines, demoralizing h= imself still further by dissipation during the few moments of freedom he is allowe= d, enview the worker at a trade. But the apprentice to a trade belongs to his master, is servant as well as workman, and he is troubled by bourgeois aspirations. Among the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, the manufacturer, borrowing from the capitalist and always in danger of being wrecked on the shoal of overproduction, drives his employees as if the devil were driving = him. He gets to hate them as the only uncertain element that impairs the perfect functioning of the mechanism; the workers take it out in hating the foreman. The merchant, under pressure of his customers, who are eager to get somethi= ng for nothing, brings pressure on the manufacturer to supply him with shoddy goods; he leads perhaps the most miserable existence of all, compelled to be servile to his customers, hated by and hating his competitors, making nothi= ng, organizing nothing. The civil servant, underpaid and struggling to keep up = his respectability, always being shifted from place to place, has not merely to= be polite like the tradesman, but to make sure that his political and religious views do not displease the administration. And, finally, the bourgeoisie of= the leisure class have tied up their interests with the capitalists, the least public-spirited members of the nation, and they live in continual terror of communism. They have now wholly lost touch with the people. They have shut themselves up in their class; and inside their doors, locked so tightly, th= ere is nothing but emptiness and chill….
“’Ma= n has come to form his soul according to his material situation. What an amazing thing! Now there is a poor man’s soul, a rich man’s soul, a tradesman’s soul… Man seems to be only an accessory to his position.’”[485]
German
Historicism
Even a sketchy s=
tudy
of the sources of Marx’s thought must say something about the sources=
of
his atheism and historicism.
Marx had no need=
of
teachers in respect of atheism. There is some evidence that in his youth he=
turned
against God and became a Satanist because God did not give him the girl he
loved. And he said: “I shall build my throne high overhead”, wh=
ich
is a more or less direct quotation of Satan’s words in Isaiah
14.13.[486]
Again, in his doctor’s thesis he wrote: “Philosophy makes no se=
cret
of the fact: her creed is the creed of Prometheus – ‘In a word,=
I
detest all the gods.’ This is her device against all deities of heave=
n or
earth who do not recognize as the highest divinity the human self-conscious=
ness
itself.”[487] In
later life Marx was known as “Old Nick”, and his little son use=
d to
call him “devil”.[488]
“In spite of all Marx’s enthusiasm for the
‘human’,” writes Edmund Wilson, “he is either inhum=
anly
dark and dead or almost superhumanly brilliant”[489]
– a truly demonic combination!
Marx’s ath=
eism
received a theoretical impetus from Feuerbach’s The Essence of
Christianity (1841), which in a sense substituted anthropology for
theology, defining God as a projection of man’s ideal for himself:
“The divine essence is nothing else than the essence of man; or, bett=
er,
it is the essence of man when freed from the limitations of the individual,
that is to say, actual corporeal man, objectified and venerated as an
independent Being distinct from man himself.”[490]
Marx, too, defin=
ed
religion as a purely human product: “the heart of a heartless world, =
as
it is the spirit of spiritless conditions… the opium of the
people.”[491]
He praised Feuer=
bach,
according to Isaiah Berlin, “for showing that in religion men delude =
themselves
by inventing an imaginary world to redress the balance of misery in real li=
fe
– it is a form of escape, a golden dream, or, in a phrase made celebr=
ated
by Marx, the opium of the people; the criticism of religion must therefore =
be
anthropological in character, and take the form of exposing and analysing i=
ts
secular origins. But Feuerbach is accused of leaving the major task untouch=
ed:
he sees that religion is an anodyne unconsciously generated by the unhappy =
to
soften the pain caused by the contradictions of the material world, but then
fails to see that these contradictions must, in that case, be removed:
otherwise they will continue to breed comforting and fatal delusions: the
revolution which alone can do so must occur not in the superstructure ̵=
1;
the world of thought – but in its material substratum, the real world=
of
men and things. Philosophy has hitherto treated ideas and beliefs as posses=
sing
an intrinsic validity of their own; this has never been true; the real cont=
ent
of a belief is the action in which it is expressed. The real convictions and
principles of a man or a society are expressed in their acts, not their wor=
ds.
Belief and act are one; if acts do not themselves express avowed beliefs, t=
he
beliefs are lies – ‘ideologies’, conscious or not, to cov=
er
the opposite of what they profess. Theory and practice are, or should be, o=
ne
and the same. ‘Philosophers have previously offered various
interpretations of the world. Our business is to change it.’”[492]
This is an athei=
st
variation on the Catholic-Protestant debate about faith and works – w=
ith
Marx coming down firmly on the Catholic side. Similarly, in the old Greek
philosophical debate about which is more real: time or eternity, Marx came =
down
on the side of time. In this he was a child of his time; for by contrast wi=
th
the Age of Reason, which had sought to elucidate truths that were valid for=
all
cultures and all times, for the Age of Revolution truth was ineluctably =
historical.
And this meant not simply that the truth about a person or nation can be
understood only in his or its historical context. It meant that truth itself
changes with time.
Thus God for the
romantics was a dynamic, evolving being indistinguishable from nature and
history, always overcoming contradictions and rising to ever higher unities=
. It
followed that there was no perfectly revealed religion, no absolute truth.
“Christians must not be ‘vain and foolish’, Friedrich
Schleiermacher warned, for their religion is not the only ‘revealed r=
eligion’.
All religions are revealed from God. Christianity is the center around which
all others gather. The disunity of religions is an evil and ‘only in =
the
totality of all such possible forms can there be given the true
religion,’ Schleiermacher added.”[493]
This Romantic sc=
heme
of history and the evolution of religion was developed by Friedrich Schelli=
ng,
who, as Fr. Michael Azkoul writes, “discoursed on the three ages of
history – the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of t=
he
Holy Spirit which correspond to the events of creation, redemption and
consummation. Schelling believed that Christianity was now passing through
‘the second age’ which Christ ‘incarnated’ almost t=
wo
millennia ago.
“In the
vocabulary of the Romantics, Christ brought ‘the Idea of Christianity=
’
with Him. An ‘Idea’ is the invisible, unchangeable, and eternal
aspect of each thing. (Plato was probably the first to teach
‘Idealism’.) Phenomena are visible, changeable, and temporary. =
Put
another way, the Idea of Christianity (‘one Church’) is what the
historical institution will become when it finishes growing, or, as Schelli=
ng
would say, when God becomes fully God. One may compare its Idea to wheat and
historical Christianity (the Idea) to what Protestantism, Roman Catholicism=
and
Eastern Christianity will become. When the multiplicity of churches grows i=
nto
the ecumenical Church, then, the Idea of Christianity, of ‘one
church’, will have been actualised in space and time. It will be
actualised in the coming of ‘the third age’, ‘the age of =
the
Spirit’, ‘the age of consummation’.”[494]
But it was a thi=
rd
Friedrich, Friedrich Hegel, who really initiated Marx – and the whole=
of
Europe – into the doctrine of historicism. Hegel had always shown an
extreme readiness always to keep “in step with the times”. Thus=
in
1806 he had hailed Napoleon’s victory at Jena as “the end of
history” and the most perfect revelation of the “World
Spirit”, and the revolution that Napoleon embodied - as the manifesta=
tion
of the perfect form of statehood. But after the fall of Napoleon and the
restoration of the Prussian monarchy Hegel began to magnify Prussian monarc=
hism
as a still more perfect historical revelation of the World Spirit. At the s=
ame
time, he called for representative institutions in 1821, and in 1831 wrote =
in
praise of the pending Reform Bill in England.[495]
Such
“flexibility”, while desirable for those wishing to keep up with
the Zeitgeist, nevertheless required some justifying if it was to pass must=
er
among intellectuals – and Hegel was a university professor. Hence the
origin of his philosophy of history. This theory is important not only for =
an
understanding of future movements, especially Marxism and Fascism, which
borrowed much from Hegel, but also in that it constitutes a kind of synthes=
is of
the two major movements of western thought that we have just examined:
rationalism, with its political child, liberal democracy, and romanticism, =
with
its offspring, the more collectivist and authoritarian forms of political l=
ife.
Hume had demonst=
rated
the irrationality of rationalism, of “pure” empiricism, but wit=
hout
proposing a way out of the dilemma it posed for believers in God, the immor=
tal
soul, morality and spirituality in general. Kant had demonstrated that the
application of reason presupposes a spirit transcending the empirical world,
but could not explain how this free realm of spirit related to the causally
determined world of matter. Hegel expanded the realm of spirit to engulf
everything, making it into a kind of pantheistic god called the Absolute Id=
ea
or the World Spirit. To this Spirit, which is the All and can only be
understood, like an organism, from the point of view of the All, he gave all
the attributes that romanticism had rescued from the maw of devouring
rationalism: emotion, mystery, dynamism, history, even nationalism. Thus to=
the
bright empiricist-rationalist thesis, and its dark romantic-idealist
antithesis, Hegel supplied a cloudy, metaphysical, empiricist-rationalist <=
i>and
romantic-idealist synthesis.[496]
Hegel made rebel=
liousness
and revolution respectable, as being, not optional modes of thought and act=
ion,
but inherent in the deepest nature of things. Rebelliousness was an aspect =
of
“alienation”, and revolution – of the self-realisation of=
the
World Spirit.
For “Hegel=
’s
dialectic,” writes Scruton, “implies that all knowledge, all
activity and all emotions exist in a state of tension, and are driven by th=
is
tension to enact a primeval drama. Each concept, desire and feeling exists
first in a primitive, immediate and unified form – without
self-knowledge, and inherently unstable, but nevertheless at home with itse=
lf.
Its final ‘realisation’ is achieved only in a condition of
‘unity restored’, a homecoming to the primordial point of rest,=
but
in a condition of achieved self-knowledge and fulfilled intention. In order=
to
reach this final point, each aspect of spirit must pass through a long
trajectory of separation, sundered from its home, and struggling to affirm
itself in a world that it does not control. This state of alienation –
the vale of tears – is the realm of becoming, in which consciousness =
is
separated from its object and also from itself. There are as many varieties=
of
alienation as there are forms of spiritual life; but in each form the funda=
mental
drama is the same: spirit can know itself only if it ‘posits’ an
object of knowledge – only if it invests its world with the idea of t=
he
other. In doing this it becomes other to itself, and lives through conflict=
and
disharmony, until finally uniting with the other – as we unite with t=
he
object of science when fully understanding it; with the self when overcoming
guilt and religious estrangement; with other people when joined in a lawful
body politic.”[497]
Lionel Trilling
writes: “The historical process that Hegel undertakes to expound is t=
he
self-realization of Spirit through the changing relation of the individual =
to
the external power of society in two of its aspects, the political power of=
the
state and the power of wealth. In an initial stage of the process that is b=
eing
described the individual consciousness renders what Hegel calls ‘obed=
ient
service’ to the external power and feels for it an ‘inner
reverence’. Its service is not only obedient but also silent and
unreasoned, taken for granted; Hegel calls this ‘the heroism of dumb
service’. This entire and inarticulate accord of the individual
consciousness with the external power of society is said to have the attrib=
ute
of ‘nobility’.
“But the
harmonious relation of the individual consciousness to the state power and =
to
wealth is not destined to endure. It is the nature of Spirit, Hegel tells u=
s,
to seek ‘existence on its own account’ – that is, to free
itself from limiting conditions, to press towards autonomy. In rendering
‘obedient service’ to and in feeling ‘inner reverenceR=
17;
for anything except itself it consents to the denial of its own nature. If =
it
is to fulfil its natural destiny of self-realization, it must bring an end =
to
its accord with the external power of society. And in terminating this R=
16;noble’
relation the individual consciousness moves towards a relation with external
power which Hegel calls ‘base’.
“The chang=
e is
not immediate. Between the noble relation of the individual consciousness to
state power and to wealth and the developing base relation there stands what
Hegel speaks of as a ‘mediating term’. In this transitional sta=
ge
the ‘heroism of dumb service’ modifies itself to become a heroi=
sm
which is not dumb but articulate, what Hegel calls the ‘heroism of
flattery’. The individual, that is to say, becomes conscious of his
relation to the external power of society; he becomes conscious of having m=
ade
the choice the maintain the relationship and of the prudential reasons which
induced him to make it – the ‘flattery’ is, in effect, the
rationale of his choice which the individual formulates in terms of the vir=
tues
of the external power, presumably a personal monarch. We might suppose that
Hegel had in mind the relation of the court aristocracy to Louis XIV.
Consciousness and choice, it is clear, imply a commitment to, rather than
identification with, the external power of society.
“From this
modification of the ‘noble’ relation to the external power the
individual proceeds to the ‘baseness’ of being actually
antagonistic to the external power. What was once served and reverenced now
comes to be regarded with resentment and bitterness. Hegel’s descript=
ion
of the new attitude is explicit: ‘ It [that is, the individual
consciousness] looks upon the authoritative power of the state as a chain, =
as
something suppressing its separate autonomous existence, and hence hates the
ruler, obeys only with secret malice and stands ever ready to burst out in
rebellion.’ And the relation of the individual self to wealth is even
baser, if only because of the ambivalence which marks it – the self l=
oves
wealth but at the same time despises it; through wealth the self ‘att=
ains
to the enjoyment of its own independent existence’, but it find wealth
discordant with the nature of Spirit, for it is of the nature of Spirit to =
be
permanent, whereas enjoyment is evanescent.
“The proce=
ss
thus described makes an unhappy state of affairs but not, as Hegel judges i=
t,
by any means a deplorable one. He intends us to understand that the movement
from ‘nobility’ to ‘baseness’ is not a devolution b=
ut a
development. So far from deploring ‘baseness’, Hegel celebrates=
it.
And he further confounds our understanding by saying that
‘baseness’ leads to and therefore is ‘nobility’. Wh=
at
is the purpose of this high-handed inversion of common meanings?
“An answer=
might
begin with the observation that the words ‘noble’ and
‘base’, although they have been assimilated to moral judgement,=
did
not originally express concepts of moral law, of a prescriptive and prohibi=
tory
code which is taken to be of general, commanding, and even supernal authori=
ty
and in which a chief criterion of a person’s rightdoing and wrongdoin=
g is
the effect of his conduct upon other persons. The words were applied, rathe=
r,
to the ideal of personal existence of a ruling class at a certain time R=
11;
its ethos, in that sense of the word which conveys the idea not of abstract=
ly
right conduct but of a characteristic manner of style of approved conduct. =
What
is in accord with this ethos is noble; what falls short of it or derogates =
from
it is base. The noble self is not shaped by its beneficent intentions towar=
ds
others; its intention is wholly towards itself, and such moral virtue as ma=
y be
attributed to it follows incidentally from its expressing the privilege and
function of its social status in mien and deportment. We might observe that=
the
traits once thought appropriate to the military life are definitive in the
formation of the noble self. It stands before the world boldly defined, its
purposes clearly conceived and openly avowed. In its consciousness there is=
no
division, it is at one with itself. The base self similarly expresses a soc=
ial
condition, in the first instance by its characteristic mien and deportment,=
as
these are presumed or required to be, and ultimately by the way in which it
carries out those of its purposes that are self-serving beyond the limits
deemed appropriate to its social status. These purposes can be realized onl=
y by
covert means and are therefore shameful. Between the intentions of the base
self and its avowals there is no congruence. But the base self, exactly bec=
ause
it is not under the control of the noble ethos, has won at least a degree of
autonomy and has thereby fulfilled the nature of Spirit. In refusing its
obedient service to the state power and to wealth it has lost its wholeness;
its selfhood is ‘disintegrated’; the self is
‘alienated’ from itself. But because it has detached itself from
imposed conditions, Hegel says that it has made a step in progress. He puts=
it
that the existence of the self ‘on its own account’ is, strictly
speaking, the loss of itself’. The statement can also be made the oth=
er
way round: ‘Alienation of self is really self-preservation’.=
221;[498]
Hegel’s
historicism, writes Golo Mann, is “a fantastic, almost mad, almost
successful [!] attempt to give an answer to every question every asked, and=
to
assign to every answer ever given to every question a historical place with=
in
his own great, final answer – an attempt to create being dialectically
from thought, to reconcile idea and reality and to overcome the cleavage
between self and non-self. It was this cleavage – the existence of the
self in an alien world – that Hegel made his starting-point. What he
found was the identity of everything with everything, of God with the world=
, of
logic with reality, of motion with rest, of necessity with freedom. The wor=
ld
spirit is everywhere, in nature, in man, in the history of man. The spirit,
alienated from itself in nature, comes into its own in man. This process ta=
kes
place on the one hand in the true history of peoples and states, and on the
other in art, religion and philosophy. All these spheres correspond to each
other; what is accomplished in each individual sector belongs to the whole =
and
fits into it or nothing will be accomplished. ‘As far as the individu=
al
is concerned each person cannot in any even help being the child of his tim=
e.
So too philosophy is the expression of its time in ideas.’ ‘He =
who
expresses and accomplishes what his time wills is the great man of his
time.’ Every present is always a single whole, just as the history of
mankind is its general lines a whole. It finds expression in peoples, states
and civilizations, of which the west European or, as Hegel calls it, the
Germanic is the highest so far attained. Will there be higher ones? On this
point the philosopher is silent. [499] One
can only understand the past, and the present to the extent that it is the
final product of all pasts which are preserved in it. The future cannot be
explored or understood; it does not exist for the spirit. No other historic=
al
thinker was so little concerned with the future as Hegel. What he hinted at=
, or
what followed from his doctrine, was that the future would be something
entirely different from the past. For philosophy comes late, at the end of =
an
epoch. It does not come to change or improve, but merely to understand and =
to
express; it constructs in the realm of the spirit what has already been
constructed in the realm of reality. ‘When philosophy paints its pict=
ure
in grey on grey, it means that a form of life has grown old, and by paintin=
g it
grey on grey it cannot be restored to its youth, but is only
recognised…’ This applies to all true philosophies, and is most
valid for the philosophy of all philosophies, namely the Hegelian, which br=
ings
to an end the epoch of all epochs: the age of Protestantism, enlightenment =
and
revolution. What was still to come? Hegel shrugged his shoulders sadly at t=
his
question. His philosophy gave no answer, and given its nature could not ven=
ture
to attempt one. ‘The spirit is in its full essence in the
present…’ But this philosophy of fulfilment, this song of prais=
e of
Man-God contains an element of pessimism: after 1815 nothing further is to =
be
expected.
“Though
Hegel’s philosophy as a whole contains rest, fulfilment and finality,=
it
is full of unrest and struggle, both in the realm of the spirit and of real=
ity.
The spirit is never content with what has been achieved, it always seeks new
conflicts, it must struggle to find and express itself anew. States and peo=
ples
are never at rest, they come into conflict and one of them must give way. T=
he
world spirit advances by catastrophes, and its path is marked by forms that=
are
used up, emptied, and jettisoned. Quiet is only apparent quiet, lull before=
a
new storm; as mere rest it is of no interest to the historian. ‘Epoch=
s of
happiness are empty pages in the history of the world.’ History does =
not
exist for the happiness, the idyllic contentment of the individual. The goa=
l is
set high: the reconciliation of all contradictions, absolute justice, compl=
ete
knowledge, the incarnation of reason on earth, the presence of God. The roa=
d to
it is one of exertion and ever new confusion. But what has happened is the =
only
thing that could have happened and how it happened was right. Terrible thin=
gs
occurred; the rise of the Roman Empire was terrible and terrible was its fa=
ll.
But everything had a purpose and was as it should be. Julius Caesar was
murdered after he had done what the age wanted from him; the Roman Empire
collapsed after it had completed its historical mission. Otherwise how coul=
d it
have fallen? It is useless to lament the abysses of history, the crimes of
power, the sufferings of good men. The world spirit is right in the end, it=
s will
will be obeyed, its purpose fulfilled; what does it care about the happines=
s or
unhappiness of individuals?[500]
‘The real is rational and the rational is the real.’ When somet=
hing
ceases to be rational, when the spirit has already moved on, it will wither
away and die. The individual may not understand his fate because he is liab=
le
to over-estimate himself and believes that history revolves around his pers=
on
at the centre. The philosopher who perceives the kernel in the multi-colour=
ed
rind of what occurs will provide the insight too.
“Power, an=
d war,
which creates and enhances power, cannot be omitted from all this. Man only
realizes himself in the state and the state exists only where there is powe=
r to
defend and attack. Might gives right. It is unlikely, it is in fact impossi=
ble,
that the state without right on its side will win. What sort of right? Not a
universally valid, pale right invented by stoicist philosophers, but histor=
ical
right, the superiority of the historical mission. Thus right was on the sid=
e of
the Spaniards against the Peruvians, in spite of all their cruelty and dece=
it;
right was on Napoleon’s side against the antiquated German Empire. La=
ter,
on the other hand, right was on the side of allied Europe against Napoleon =
only
because, the professor concluded after much puzzling over this problem in h=
is
study, the arrogant Emperor, himself now outdated, gave the Allies the righ=
t to
conquer him, and only because he put himself in the wrong could he be
conquered. Success, the outcome, provide the justification; in power there =
lies
truth…”[501]
Hegel’s
Political Philosophy
Hegel’s
philosophy is manifestly false, even, as Popper has demonstrated, nonsensic=
al.
Nevertheless, in view of his historical importance, especially in his influ=
ence
on the (no less false) theories of the modern totalitarians, it will be wor=
th
reviewing his political philosophy in a little more detail.
“In the
historical development of Spirit,” writes Bertrand Russell, expounding
Hegel, “there have been three main phases: The Orientals, the Greeks =
and
Romans, and the Germans. ‘The history of the world is the discipline =
of
the uncontrolled natural will, bringing it into obedience to a universal
principle and conferring subjective freedom. The East knew, and to the pres=
ent
day knows, only that One is free; the Greek and Roman world, that some are
free; the German world knows that All are free.’ One might have suppo=
sed
that democracy would be the appropriate form of government where all are fr=
ee,
but not so. Democracy and aristocracy alike belong to the stage where some =
are
free, despotism to that where one is free, and monarchy to that in which all
are free. This is connected with the very odd sense in which Hegel uses the
word ‘freedom’. For him (and so far we may agree) there is no
freedom without law; but he tends to convert this, and to argue that wherev=
er
there is law there is freedom. Thus ‘freedom’, for him, means
little more than the right to obey the law.
“As might =
be
expected, he assigns the highest role to the Germans in the terrestrial
development of Spirit. ‘The German spirit is the spirit of the new wo=
rld.
Its aim is the realization of absolute Truth as the unlimited
self-determination of freedom – that freedom which has its own absolu=
te
form itself as its purport.’[502]
“This is a=
very
superfine brand of freedom. It does not mean that you will be able to keep =
out
of a concentration camp. It does not imply democracy, or a free press, or a=
ny
of the usual Liberal watchwords, which Hegel rejects with contempt. When Sp=
irit
gives laws to itself, it does so freely. To our mundane vision, it may seem
that the Spirit that gives laws is embodied in the monarch, and the Spirit =
to
which laws are given is embodied in his subjects. But from the point of vie=
w of
the Absolute the distinction between monarch and subjects, like all other
distinctions, is illusory, and when the monarch imprisons a liberal-minded
subject, that is still Spirit freely determining itself. Hegel praises Rous=
seau
for distinguishing between the general will and the will of all. One gathers
that the monarch embodies the general will, whereas a parliamentary majority
only embodies the will of all…
“So much is
Germany glorified that one might expect to find it the final embodiment of =
the
Absolute Idea, beyond which no further development would be possible. But t=
his
is not Hegel’s view. On the contrary, he says that America is the lan=
d of
the future, ‘where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the
world’s history shall reveal itself – perhaps [he adds
characteristically[ in a contest between North and South America.’ He
seems to think that everything important takes the form of war. If it were
suggested to him that the contribution of America to world history might be=
the
development of a society without extreme poverty, he would not be intereste=
d.
On the contrary, he says that, as yet, there is no real State in America,
because a real State requires a division of classes into rich and poor.
“Nations, =
in
Hegel, play the part that classes play in Marx. The principle of historical
development, he says, is national genius. In every age, there is some one
nation which is charged with the mission of carrying the world through the
stage of the dialectic that it has reached. In our age, of course, this nat=
ion
is Germany. [503]
But in addition to nations, we must also take account of world-historical
individuals; these are men in whose aims are embodied the dialectical
transitions that are due to take place in their time. These men are heroes,=
and
may justifiably contravene ordinary moral rules…
“HegelR=
17;s
emphasis on nations, together with his peculiar conception of
‘freedom’, explains his glorification of the State – a ve=
ry
important aspect of his political philosophy….
“We are to=
ld in The
Philosophy of History that ‘the State is the actually existing
realized moral life’, and that all the spiritual reality possessed by=
a
human being he possesses only through the State. ‘For his spiritual
reality consists in this, that his own essence – Reason – is
objectively present to him, that it possesses objective immediate existence=
for
him… For truth is the unity of the universal and subjective Will, and=
the
universal is to be found in the State, in its laws, its universal and ratio=
nal
arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth.’[504]=
230;
“… I=
f the
State existed only for the interests of individuals (as Liberals contend), =
an
individual might or might not be a member of the State. It has, however, a
quite different relation to the individual: since it is objective Spirit, t=
he
individual only has objectivity, truth, and morality in so far as he is a
member of the State, whose true content and purpose is union as such. It is
admitted that there may be bad States, but these merely exist, and have no =
true
reality, whereas a rational State is infinite in itself.
“It will b=
e seen
that Hegel claims for the State much the same position as St. Augustine and=
his
Catholic successors claimed for the Church. There are, however, two respect=
s in
which the Catholic claim is more reasonable than Hegel’s. In the first
place, the Church is not a chance geographical association, but a body unit=
ed
by a common creed, believed by its members to be of supreme importance; it =
is
thus by its very essence the embodiment of what Hegel calls the
‘Idea’. In the second place, there is only one Catholic Church,
whereas there are many States. When each State, in relation to its subjects=
, is
made an absolute as Hegel makes it, there is difficulty in finding any
philosophical principle by which to regulate the relations between different
States. In fact, at this point Hegel abandons his philosophical talk, falli=
ng
back on the state of nature and Hobbes’s war of all against all.
“The habit=
of
speaking of ‘the State’, as if there were only one, is misleadi=
ng
so long as there is no world State. Duty being, for Hegel, solely a relatio=
n of
the individual to his State, no principle is left by which to moralize the
relations between States. This Hegel recognizes. In external relations, he
says, the State is an individual, and each State is independent as against =
the
others. ‘Since in this independence the being-for-self of real spirit=
has
its existence, it is the first freedom and highest honour of a people.̵=
7; He
goes on to argue against any sort of League of Nations by which the
independence of separate States might be limited. The duty of a citizen is
entirely confined (so far as the external relations of his State are concer=
ned)
to upholding the substantial individuality and independence and sovereignty=
of
his own State. It follows that war is not wholly an evil, or something that=
we
should seek to abolish. The purpose of the State is not merely to uphold the
life and property of the citizens, and this fact provides the moral
justification of war, which is not to be regarded as an absolute evil or as
accidental, or as having its cause in something that ought not to be.
“Hegel doe=
s not
mean only that, in some situations, a nation cannot rightly avoid going to =
war.
He means much more than this. He is opposed to the creation of institutions
– such as a world government – which would prevent such situati=
ons
from arising, because he thinks it a good thing that there should be wars f=
rom
time to time. War, he says, is the condition in which we take seriously the
vanity of temporal goods and things. (This view is to be contrasted with the
opposite theory, that all wars have economic causes.) War has a positive mo=
ral
value: ‘War has the higher significance that through it the moral hea=
lth
of peoples is preserved in their indifference towards the stabilizing of fi=
nite
determinations.’ Peace is ossification; the Holy Alliance, and
Kant’s League for Peace, are mistaken, because a family of states nee=
ds
an enemy. Conflicts of States can only be decided by war; States being towa=
rds
each other in a state of nature, their relations are not legal or moral. Th=
eir
rights have their reality in their particular wills, and the interest of ea=
ch
State is its own highest law. There is no contrast of morals and politics,
because States are not subject to ordinary moral laws.
“Such is
Hegel’s doctrine of the State – a doctrine which, if accepted,
justifies every internal tyranny and every external aggression that can
possibly be imagined…”[505] Fo=
r,
as he said, “the march of world history stands outside virtue, vice a=
nd
justice…”[506]
However, as Copl=
eston
points out, “it is essential to remember that Hegel is speaking
throughout of the concept of the State, its ideal essence. He has no intent=
ion
of suggesting that historical States are immune from criticism.”[507]
Having made that
qualification, it remains true that the similarities between Hegel and the
modern totalitarians, especially the Fascists, are clear: “(a)
Nationalism, in the form of the historicist idea that the state is the
incarnation of the Spirit (or now, of the Blood) of the state-creating nati=
on
(or race); one chosen nation (now, the chosen race) is destined for world
domination. (b) The state as the natural enemy of all other states must ass=
ert
its existence in war. (c) The state is exempt from any kind of moral
obligation; history, that is, historical success, is the sole judge; collec=
tive
utility is the sole principle of personal conduct; propagandist lying and d=
istortion
of the truth is permissible. (d) The ‘ethical’ idea of war (tot=
al
and collectivist), particularly of young nations against older ones; war, f=
ate
and fame as most desirable goods. (e) The creative rôle of the Great =
Man,
the world-historical personality, the man of deep knowledge and great passi=
on
(now, the principle of leadership). (f) The ideal of the heroic life
(‘live dangerously’) and of the ‘heroic man’ as opp=
osed
to the petty bourgeois and his life of shallow mediocrity.”[508]
Barzun has sough=
t to
lessen Hegel’s guilt somewhat: “Hegel did express himself in fa=
vor
of a strong state. What intelligent German who remembered 200 years of
helplessness would want a weak one?”[509]
True; and yet the
desire for a strong state, which is compatible with many creeds and
philosophies, need not be translated into the worship of the State as the
Divine Idea on earth, which is in effect Hegel’s idea. As he put it:
“the State is the basis and centre of all the concrete elements in the
life of a people: of Art, Law, Morals, Religion, and Science…”[510] Th=
is
is idolatry, and the purest atheism…
Golo Mann writes
penetratingly about Hegel: “If Hegel’s philosophy had been true,
then it could not remain true: it must be treated as Hegel had treated all
earlier philosophy, ‘set aside’, affirmed and denied at the same
time. Hegel had started life as a Protestant and had somehow managed to bri=
ng
Christianity even into his mature philosophy. His disciples or their discip=
les
broke with Christianity and became atheists – an attitude which could=
be
derived from Hegel’s philosophy, if it was followed to its logical
conclusion. They took it upon themselves to explain Christianity, like all
religious belief, historically, as a reflection of social reality, as a
self-misunderstanding. Hegel had spoken much of the reconciliation of idea =
and
reality, but he had achieved this reconciliation only in the mind, through =
his
philosophy; it was for philosophy to recognized restrospectively that what
happened in reality was reasonable. Hegel’s successors, however, clai=
med
that reality was not reasonable but must be made reasonable, not by
dreams but by political action. Politics, rightly understood, was thus in t=
he
end the true philosophy. Hegel had spoken of the ‘truth of power̵=
7;,
and had meant the power of the state, of kings, of victorious armies. His
followers spoke of the truth of revolutions, of majorities, of mass action.
There was no need to fear the masses as Hegel had feared them. The rights of
the private individual were not as important as liberals believed. The state
could not be too powerful, provided it was a scientifically directed state,
free from all superstition. Such a state would do away with the remains of =
the
Middle Ages and make men free…”[511]
So from Hildebra=
nd to
Hegel we have come full circle: from the absolute dominion of the Church in=
all
spheres to the absolute dominion of the State in all spheres. The theories =
of
Hegel and the “Hegelians” found their incarnation in the
State-worshipping creeds of Communism and Fascism, the most evil in history.
Such is the fall of western civilisation, its thesis and antithesis, which =
has
not yet found – or, more exactly, has not recovered (since it used to
have it in the pre-schism, Orthodox period) - its synthesis in the Orthodox
symphony of powers…
The
Spectre of Communism: (1) Heinrich Heine
Romanticism is
usually, and rightly, associated with imagination and fantasy. And yet,
paradoxically, the Romantics were also Realists. For, as Victor Hugo said:
“Whatever is in nature is in art”.[512] Now
realism combined with that other major trend in nineteenth-century art and
philosophy, historicism, combined to produce the historical novel; f=
or
this is the art-form that most closely mirrors the reality of history. But
poetry also became more realistic; and in the German Jewish poet Heinrich H=
eine
it found not only a realist, but also a prophet of the future, of the
revolution….
“He
foresaw the inevitable annihilation of the rich and their state by the poor,
the ‘dangerous classes’ as they were called in France at the ti=
me.
His prescience did not make him happy, yet he despised the existing social
order; his attitude was that of one who was above or outside it. It was as
though Heine was bewitched by Communism. In his articles he constantly talk=
ed
about it at a time when only a very few people concerned themselves with it=
. He
spoke of it more with dread than hope, as of an elemental movement of the a=
ge,
immune to politics.
’Communism is the secret name of=
the
terrible antagonist who confronts the present-day bourgeois regime with
proletarian domination and all its consequences. There will be a terrible
duel… Though Communism is at present little talked about, vegetating =
in
forgotten attics on wretched straw pallets, it is nevertheless the dismal h=
ero
destined to play a great, if transitory part in the modern traged…=
217;
(20 June 1842).
Three weeks later he prophesied that a
European war would develop into a social world revolution from which would
emerge an iron Communist dictatorship,
‘the old absolutist tradition=
230;
but in different clothes and with new catchphrases and slogans… Maybe
there will then only be one shepherd and one flock, a free
shepherd with an iron crook and an identically shorn, identically bleating
human herd. Confused, sombre times loom ahed, and the prophet who might wan=
t to
write a new apocalypse would need to invent entirely new beasts, and such
frightening ones that St. John’s animal symbols would appear like gen=
tle
doves and amoretti by comparison… I advise our grandchildren to be bo=
rn
with very thick skins.’
Then again he saw Communism not as a s=
ystem
under which men would enjoy the material benefits of life but as one under
which they would slave at their jobs with dreary monotony; once he even pre=
dicted
[with Dostoyevsky] the marriage of the Catholic Church with the Communists =
and
foresaw an empire of asceticism, joylessness and strict control of ideas as=
the
child of this union. Heine made himself few friends by such prophecies. The
conservatives, the good German citizens, regarded him as a rebel and a
frivolous wit. The Left saw in him a faithless ally, a socialist who was af=
raid
of the revolution, who took back today what he had said yesterday and who
behaved like an aristocrat. It is true that Heine, the artist, was both an
aristocrat and a rebel. He hated the rule of the old military and noble cas=
te,
particularly in Prussia, despised the role of the financiers, particularly =
in
France, and yet feared a levelling reign of terror by the people….
“Heine cou=
ld not
identify himself with any of the great causes that excited his compatriots =
at
home or in exile [in Paris]; the servant of beauty and the intellect cannot=
do
this. He could only see things with gay, sarcastic or melancholy eyes, with=
out
committing himself. Yet just because he was detached, sometimes to the poin=
t of
treachery, his work has remained more alive than that of his more resolute
contemporaries.
“Those who=
had
no doubts, who were reliable, were equally irritated by Heine’s attit=
ude
towards Germany. At times he loved it and could not do otherwise. He had be=
en
born there and spoke its language; he was only a young man when he wrote the
poems which have become part of Germany’s national heritage. Sick and
lonely in exile, he longed for home. Yet at other times he mocked his
compatriots in a manner which they could not forgive for their philistinism,
their provincialism, their weakness for titles, their bureaucrats, soldiers=
and
thirty-six monarchs. In an extremely witty poem he says that if there were =
ever
to be a German revolution the Germans would not treat their kings as roughl=
y as
the British and French had treated theirs…
“No sooner=
had
Heine written verses of this kind and mocked at the Germans for their lamb-=
like
patience than he warned the French that the German revolution of the future
would far exceed theirs in terror.
‘A drama will be enacted in Germ=
any
compared with which the French Revoution will seem like a harmless idyll.
Christianity may have restrained the martial ardour of the Teutons for a ti=
me,
but it did not destroy it; now that the old restraining talisman, the cross,
has rotted away, the old frenzied madness will break out again.’
The French must not believe that it wo=
uld be
a pro-French revolution, though it might pretend to be republican and extre=
me.
German nationalism, unlike that of the French, was not receptive to outside
influences filled with missionary zeal; it was negative and aggressive,
particularly towards France. ‘I wish you well and therefore I tell you
the bitter truth. You have more to fear from liberated Germany than from the
entire Holy Alliance with all its Croats and Cossacks put
together…’ Heine toyed with things cleverly and irresponsibly. =
At
the time it was thought in France, in Italy and in Germany too that nationa=
lism
was international, closely related to the republican and the democratic cau=
se;
that nations, once they were free and united at home, would join forces in =
one
great league of nations. Heine did not share this view. He regarded
nationalism, particularly German nationalism, as a stupid, disruptive force
motivated by hatred…”[513]
Talmon writes th=
at
Heine “was vouchsafed an uncanny prophetic insight into the terrifying
potentialities of German Romanti pantheism, with its vision of man as a bei=
ng
swallowed up or impelled by cosmic forces, the all-embracing Will of Histor=
y,
and the destiny of the Race. These were the favourite images of the various
architects of catastrophe, who never tired of pouring scorn on the bloodles=
s,
cogitating, analysing and vacillating creature cut off from the vital force=
s of
being.”[514]
The
Spectre of Communism: (2) Karl Marx
The other German=
Jew
who foresaw the spectre of communism – and conjured it out of the aby=
ss
– was, of course, Karl Marx. By the mid-1840s, writes Wilson, Marx and
Engels “had taken stock of their predecessors and, with their own sha=
rp
and realistic minds, they had lopped off the sentimentality and fantasy whi=
ch
had surrounded the practical perceptions of the utopians. From Saint-Simon =
they
accepted as valid his [supposed] discovery that modern politics was simply =
the
science of regulating production; from Fourier, his arraignment of the
bourgeois, his consciousness of the ironic contrast between ‘the fren=
zy
of speculation, the spirit of all-devouring commercialism’, which were
rampant under the reign of the bourgeoisie and ‘the brilliant promise=
s of
the Enlightenment’ which had preceded them; from Owen, the realization
that the factory system must be the root of the social revolution. But they=
saw
that the mistake of the utopian socialists had been to imagine that sociali=
sm
was to be imposed upon society from above by disinterested members of the u=
pper
classes. The bourgeoisie as a whole, they believed, could not be induced to=
go
against its own interests. The educator, as Marx was to write in his The=
ses
on Feuerbach, must, after all, first have been educated: he is not real=
ly
confronting disciples with a doctrine that has been supplied him by God; he=
is
merely directing a movement of which he is himself a member and which energ=
izes
him and gives him his purpose. Marx and Engels combined the aims of the
utopians with Hegel’s process of organic development.”[515]
In this way they
substituted Hegel’s idea of the historical role of nations with that =
of
the role of class. “The history of all hitherto existing socie=
ty
is a history of class struggle”, wrote Marx and Engels in The
Communist Manifesto. Marx claimed that this was his only original
contribution to Marxism. Be that as it may (Plato, as Sir Karl Popper points
out, had said something similar), it was certainly one of the two fundament=
al
axioms of his theory.
The other =
was
his teaching on the economic foundation of all human civilization. Everythi=
ng
is determined, according to Marx, by man’s struggle for economic
survival, which in turn depends on his relationship to the economic conditi=
ons
of production. The juridical, political, religious, aesthetic and philosoph=
ical
aspects of man’s existence are all simply “ideological forms of
appearance” of the only true reality, his economic position in society
– that is, his class membership. As he put it in his famous epigram:
“It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence =
211;
rather, it is his social existence that determines his consciousness.”=
;[516]
For “I was
led,” he wrote, “to the conclusion that legal relations, as wel=
l as
forms of state, could neither be understood by themselves, nor explained by=
the
so-called general progress of the human mind, but that they are rooted in t=
he
material conditions of life which Hegel calls… civil society. The ana=
tomy
of civil society is to be sought in political economy.”
“The single
operative cause,” writes Berlin, “which makes one people differ=
ent
from another, one set of institutions and beliefs opposed to another is, so
Marx now came to believe, the economic environment in which it is set, the
relationship of the ruling class of possessors to those whom they exploit,
arising from the specific quality of the tension which persists between the=
m.
The fundamental springs of action in the life of men, he believed, all the =
more
powerful for not being recognised by them, are their relationships to the
alignment of classes in the economic struggle: the factor, knowledge of whi=
ch
would enable anyone to predict successfully men’s basic line of
behaviour, is their actual social position – whether they are outside=
or
inside the ruling class, whether their welfare depends on its success or
failure, whether they are placed in a position to which the preservation of=
the
existing order is or is not essential. Once this is known, men’s
particular personal motives and emotions become comparatively irrelevant to=
the
investigation: they may be egoistic or altruistic, generous or mean, clever=
or
stupid, ambitious or modest. Their natural qualities will be harnessed by t=
heir
circumstances to operate in a given direction, whatever their natural tende=
ncy.
Indeed, it is misleading to speak of a ‘natural tendency’ or an=
unalterable
‘human nature’. Tendencies may be classified either in accordan=
ce
with the subjective feeling which they engender (and this is, for purposes =
of
scientific prediction, unimportant), or in accordance with their actual aim=
s,
which are socially conditioned. Men behave before they start to reflect on =
the
reasons for, or the justification of, their behaviour; the majority of the
members of a community will act in a similar fashion, whatever the subjecti=
ve
motives for which they will appear to themselves to be acting as they do. T=
his
is obscured by the fact that in the attempt to convince themselves that the=
ir
acts are determined by reasons or by moral or religious beliefs, men have
tended to construct elaborate rationalisations of their behaviour. Nor are
these rationalisations wholly powerless to affect action, for, growing into
great institutions like moral codes or religious organisations, they often
linger on long after the social pressures, to explain away which they arose,
have disappeared. Thus these great organised illusions themselves become pa=
rt
of the objective social situation, part of the external world which modifies
the behaviour of individuals, functioning in the same way as the invariant
factors, climate, soil, physical organism, function in their interplay with
social institutions.
“Marx̵=
7;s
immediate successors tended to minimise Hegel’s influence upon him; b=
ut
his vision of the world crumbles and yields only isolated insights if, in t=
he
effort to represent him as he conceived himself, as the rigorous, severely
factual social scientist, the great unifying, necessary pattern in terms of
which he thought, is left out or whittled down.
“Like Hege=
l,
Marx treats history as phenomenology. In Hegel the Phenomenology of the hum=
an
Spirit is an attempt to show… an objective order in the development of
human consciousness and in the succession of civilisations that are its
concrete embodiment. Influenced by a notion prominent in the Renaissance, b=
ut
reaching back to an earlier mystical cosmogony, Hegel looked upon the
development of mankind as being similar to that of an individual human bein=
g.
Just as in the case of a man a particular capacity, or outlook, or way of
dealing with reality cannot come into being until and unless other capaciti=
es
have first become developed – that is, indeed, the essence of the not=
ion
of growth or education in the case of individuals – so races, nations,
churches, cultures, succeed each other in a fixed order, determined by the
growth of the collective faculties of mankind expressed in arts, sciences,
civilisation as a whole. Pascal had perhaps meant something of this kind wh=
en
he spoke of humanity as a single, centuries old, being, growing from genera=
tion
to generation. For Hegel all change is due to the movement of the dialectic,
which works by a constant logical criticism, that is, by struggle against, =
and
final self-destruction of, ways of thought and constructions of reason and
feeling which, in their day, had embodied the highest point reached by the
ceaseless growth (which for Hegel is the logical self-realisation) of the h=
uman
spirit; but which, embodied in rules or institutions, and erroneously taken=
as
final and absolute by a given society or outlook, thereby become obstacles =
to
progress, dying survivals of a logically ‘transcended’ stage, w=
hich
by their very one-sidedness breed logical antimonies and contradictions by
which they are exposed and destroyed. Marx translated this vision of histor=
y as
a battlefield of incarnate ideas into social terms, of the struggle between
classes. For him alienation (for that is what Hegel, following Rousseau and
Luther and an earlier Christian tradition, called the perpetual self-divorc=
e of
men from unity with nature, with each other, with God, which the struggle of
thesis against antithesis entailed) is intrinsic to the social process, ind=
eed
it is the heart of history itself. Alienation occurs when the results of
men’s acts contradict their true purposes, when their official values=
, or
the parts they play, misrepresent their real motives and needs and goals. T=
his
is the case, for example, when something that men have made to respond to h=
uman
needs – say, a system of laws, or the rules of musical composition
– acquires an independent status of its own, and is seen by men, not =
as
something created by them to satisfy a common social want (which may have
disappeared long ago), but as an objective law or institution, possessing
eternal, impersonal authority in its own right, like the unalterable laws of
Nature as conceived by scientists and ordinary men, like God and His
Commandments for a believer. For Marx the capitalist system is precisely th=
is
kind of entity, a vast instrument brought into being by intelligible materi=
al
demands – a progressive improvement and broadening of life in its own=
day,
that generates its own intellectual, moral, religious beliefs, values and f=
orms
of life. Whether those who hold them know it or not, such beliefs and values
merely uphold the power of the class whose interests the capitalist system
embodies; nevertheless, they come to be viewed by all sections of society as
being objectively and eternally valid for all mankind. Thus, for example,
industry and the capitalist mode of exchange are not timelessly valid
institutions, but were generated by the mounting resistance by peasants and
artisans to dependence on the blind forces of nature. They had had their
moment; and the values these institutions generated will change or vanish w=
ith
them.”[517]
Marx di=
ffered
from Hegel also in his vision of the final outcome of the historical proces=
s.
Whereas for Hegel the self-realization of the Divine Idea culminated in the
Prussian State, for Marx it culminated in the victory of the last and large=
st
class, the proletariat. And finally in the withering away of the now unnece=
ssary
state…
One thing was ce=
rtain,
though: the bourgeoisie could not stand. For Marx and Engels understood the
characteristic of the industrial, bourgeois age that distinguished it from =
all
previous ages – its dynamism. Whereas previous ages aimed to preserve=
the
social structure in order to preserve their place in it, the bourgeois were=
in
effect constantly changing it, knowing that technological advance was
constantly making present relationships obsolete and unprofitable. Not only=
did
it overthrow the old, patriarchal and feudal society that came before it: it
was constantly working to overthrow itself.
“The bourgeoisie,” they wrote, “cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of= production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes= of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their trace of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones beco= me antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into the air.= 221;[518]
But this constant
change, though promoted by the bourgeoisie, at the same time built up the
numbers and resources of the proletariat. “Not only has the bourgeois=
ie
forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into
existence the men who are to wield those weapons – the modern working
class – the proletarians. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e. capi=
tal,
is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working
class, developed.”[519]
Was Marx’s
theory true? If his first axiom, that man’s thought is determined by =
his
economic status, is true, then there is no reason for believing it to be tr=
ue
insofar as Marx’s thought, too, must be determined by his economic
status. As for the second, the idea that class conflict is the sole determi=
nant
of world history, there are countless counter-examples that disprove it.[520] And
so, since both his fundamental axioms are false, there is no reason for
believing the rest of his theory.
1848
As we have seen,=
Marx
declared in his Theses on Feuerbach: “The philosophers have on=
ly
interpreted the world. Our business is to change it.” His chan=
ce
to change the world came in 1848, with the publication of his most famous w=
ork,
The Communist Manifesto and the first European-wide revolution.
The 1848 revolut=
ion,
writes Hobsbawm, “coincided with a social catastrophe: the great
depression which swept across the continent from the middle 1840s. Harvests
– and especially the potato crop – failed. Entire populations s=
uch
as those of Ireland, and to a lesser extent Silesia and Flanders, starved.
Food-prices rose. Industrial depression multiplied unemployment, and the ma=
sses
of the labouring poor were deprived of their modest income at the very mome=
nt
when their cost of living rocketed. The situation varied from one country to
another and within each, and – fortunately for the existing regimes
– the most miserable populations, such as the Irish and the Flemish, =
or
some of the provincial factory workers were also politically among the most
immature: the cotton operatives of the Nord department of France, for insta=
nce,
took out their desperation on the equally desperate Belgian immigrant who
flooded into Northern France, rather than on the government or even the
employers. Moreover, in the most industrialized economy, the sharpest edge =
of
discontent had already been taken away by the great industrial and
railway-building boom of the middle 1840s. 1846-8 were bad years, but not so
bad as 1841-2, and what was more, they were merely a sharp dip in what was =
now
visibly an ascending slope of economic prosperity. But, taking Western and
Central Europe as a whole, the catastrophe of 1846-8 was universal and the =
mood
of the masses, always pretty close to subsistence level, tense and impassio=
ned.
“A European
economic cataclysm thus coincided with the visible corrosion of the old
regimes. A peasant uprising in Galicia in 1846; the election of a ‘li=
beral’
Pope in the same year; a civil war between radicals and Catholics in
Switzerland in later 1847, won by the radicals; one of the perennial Sicili=
an
autonomist insurrections in Palermo in early 1848: they were not merely str=
aws
in the wind, they were the first squalls of the gale. Everyone knew it. Rar=
ely
has revolution been more universally predicted, though not necessarily for =
the
right countries or the right dates. An entire continent waited, ready by no=
w to
pass the news of revolution almost instantly from city to city by means of =
the
electric telegraph. In 1831 Victor Hugo had written that he already heard
‘the dull sound of revolution, still deep down in the earth, pushing =
out
under every kingdom in Europe its subterranean galleries from the central s=
haft
of the mine which is Paris’. In 1847 the sound was loud and close. In
1848 the explosion burst.”[521]
“Citizen-King” Louis Philippe tried to create an impossi=
ble
compromise between the principles of monarchy and revolution, but was unabl=
e to
contain these tensions and abdicated, fleeing to England in February, 1848.
However, the Provisional Government of the Second Republic, which included a
worker in its ranks, the mechanic Albert Martin, did not last long: the
elections to the Constituent Assembly, now on the basis of universal male
suffrage, returned a massive monarchist majority. Many of the liberal
bourgeoisie, fearing social revolution, voted for the right[522], as
did the poor, but property-owning peasantry. As the new government arrested=
revolutionary
leaders, clawed back some of the concessions of February and abolished nati=
onal
workshops, the urban poor rose in rebellion against the republic they had
helped to create. This rebellion was put down with much bloodshed. France n=
ow
had an ideal liberal constitution, with Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great
Napoleon as elected President. However, in 1851 he staged a coup
d’état, and proclaimed the Second Empire.
The pattern of e=
vents
was remarkably similar to that of the First French Revolution and the First
Empire under the Napoleon the First: as Alfonse Karr wrote, plus ç=
;a
change, plus c’est la même chose.[523]
However, two things radically distinguished 1848 from 1789. The first was t=
hat
the monarchical principle was now much weaker. Thus in January, 1848 De
Tocqueville, declared: “The old monarchy [of Louis XVI]…. was
stronger than you, because of its [hereditary] origin; it had better support
than you from ancient practices, old customs, ancient beliefs; it was stron=
ger
than you, and yet it fell into the dust… Can you not feel – how
shall I put it? – the wind of revolution in the air?”[524] The
second was that the spirit of revolution now had a more radical and powerful
intellectual support in the form of the theory that took its name from its =
founder,
Marx.
However, this su=
pport
was still too weak, too little-known and too extreme for the majority even =
of
the leftists. And there were several other factors that contributed to the
collapse of the revolution almost as quickly as it spread across Europe. One
was the continued support of the armies for the dynastic principle. Another=
was
the distrust of the peasants, still by far the majority part of the populat=
ion
in most countries, for the urban intellectuals. A third was the conflicts
created by nationalist movements, which theoretically should have chimed in
with the liberals’ aims, but in practice often undermined them.
The most importa= nt of these nationalist movements were those for the unification of Italy and Germany. Italy was still little more than “a geographical expression”, in Metternich’s phrase. And when the Italian revolutionaries rebelled, as the Tuscan radical, Giuseppe Montanelli, said, “there was no unity of direction; therefore there was no national government. We fought as Piedmontese, as Tuscans, as Neapolitans, as Romans, not as Italians.” Thus when the Austrians counter-attacked against revolutionary Milan and Venice, many of their soldiers were poor Italians w= ho distrusted the urban revolutionaries; and the Bourbon King of the Two Sicil= ies Ferdinand II found allies amongst the Neapolitan poor.[525] Mazzini’s slogan, Italia farà da sé (Italy will = do it alone), had failed. His romantic associate Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-82) = fled to South America.[526]
German unificati=
on was
a little further advanced; in 1834 Prussia and the other German states exce=
pt
the Austrian empire had formed a Zollverein, or customs union, to
promote trade (an early model for the European Economic Union); and in Marc=
h,
1848 an all-German preparatory parliament (Vorparlament) convened in
Frankfurt. But there were arguments over what kind of constitution a united
Germany should have, and whether it should be a “little Germany”
without Austria, or a “great Germany” with it. In any case, the
problem of what to do with non-German national minorities remained. The
parliament ignored the demands of the Prussian Poles for national
self-determination; and the Czechs, among other national minorities, “=
;saw
the [Austro-Hungarian] Empire as a less unattractive solution than absorpti=
on
by some expansionist nationalism such as the Germans’ or the
Magyars’. ‘If Austria did not already exist,’ Professor
Palacky, the Czech spokesman, is supposed to have said, ‘it would be
necessary to invent it.’”[527]
Of all the Europ=
ean
revolutions, the Hungarian came the nearest to success in 1848. But it, too,
came to grief on the rock of nationalism – and the Russian army. Hobs=
bawm
writes: “Unlike Italy, Hungary was already a more or less unified
political entity (‘the lands of the crown of St. Stephen’), wit=
h an
effective constitution, a not negligible degree of autonomy, and indeed mos=
t of
the elements of a sovereign state except independence. Its weakness was that
the Magyar aristocracy which governed this vast and overwhelmingly agrarian
area ruled not only over the Magyar peasantry of the great plain, but over a
population of which perhaps 60 per cent consisted of Croats, Serbs, Slovaks,
Rumanians and Ukrainians, not to mention a substantial German minority. The=
se
peasant peoples were not unsympathetic to a revolution which freed the serf=
s,
but were antagonised by the refusal of even most of the Budapest radicals to
make any concession to their national difference from the Magyars, as their
political spokesmen were antagonised by a ferocious policy of Magyarisation=
and
the incorporation of hitherto in some ways autonomous border regions into a
centralised and unitary Magyar state. The court at Vienna, following the
habitual imperialist maxim ‘divide and rule’, offered them supp=
ort.
It was to be a Croat army, under Baron Jellacic, a friend of Gay, the pione=
er
of a Yugoslav nationalism, which led the assault on revolutionary Vienna and
revolutionary Hungary.”[528]
The final cou=
p de
grâce was administered by the 300,000 Russian troops sent by Tsar
Nicholas I. Thus did Russia deserve her reputation as ‘The Gendarme of
Europe”, the last support of the traditional order. Europe proved her=
self
extremely ungrateful to her saviour in 1812 and again in 1848…
L.A. Tikhomirov
writes: “Revolutionary agitation between the years 1830 and 1848 was
carried out mainly by the Carbonari and various ‘Young Germanies̵=
7;,
‘Young Italies’, etc. In the Masonic world before 1848 something
powerful, similar to 1789, was being planned, and preparations for the
revolution went ahead strongly in all countries. In 1847 a big Masonic
convention was convened in Strasbourg from deputies elected at several small
conventions convened earlier… At the convention it was decided to
‘masonize’ the Swiss cantons and then produce a revolutionary
explosion at the same time throughout Europe. As we know, movement did in f=
act
follow, with a difference of several months, in a whole series of countries:
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Parma, Venice, etc. Reformist ‘banquets=
’
laying the beginning of the revolution in Paris were organized by the direc=
tors
of the Masonic lodges…
“… W=
hen
Louis Philippe fled and a republic was proclaimed, the Masonic lodge loudly
expressed its joy. On March 10, 1848 the Supreme Council of the Scottish Ri=
te
welcomed the Provisional government. On March 24 a delegation of the Grand
Orient also welcomed the Provisional government and was received by two
ministers, Crémieux and Garnier-Pagès… who came out in
their Masonic regalia.”[529]
But the Masons s=
eemed
to have undergone a change of heart in the middle of the revolution, and
decided, hether out of fear or for some other reason, not to allow it to
proceed to its logical conclusion. For during the bloody “June
days”, they switched sides, supporting the government General Cavaign=
ac
against the workers in the streets. Thus “on June 27, the day after t=
he
revolutionaries had been defeated, the Grand Orient issued a statement
supporting Cavaignac.”[530]
Perhaps it was t=
he
spectre of communism that stopped the Masons from going all the way in 1848.
Perhaps The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, published just
before the revolution, had set them thinking. In any case, the consequences
were profound.
“Hencefore,” writes Hobsbawm, “there was to be no
general social revolution of the kind envisaged before 1848 in the
‘advanced’ countries of the world. The centre of gravity of such
social revolutionary movements, and therefore of twentieth-century socialist
and communist regimes, was to be in the marginal and backward regions…
The sudden, vast and apparently boundless expansion of the world capitalist
economy provided political alternatives in the ‘advanced’
countries. The (British) industrial revolution had swallowed the (French)
political revolution.”[531]
The main
“political alternative” was the liberalisation of the western
European regimes in the following decades that blunted the hunger of the mo=
re
moderate revolutionaries, persuading them to think of working with rather t=
han
against the system to attain their aims.
“In 1848-9
moderate liberals therefore made two important discoveries in western Europ=
e:
that revolution was dangerous and that some of their substantial demands
(especially in economic matters) could be met without it. The bourgeoisie
ceased to be a revolutionary force.”[532]
M.S. Anderson wr=
ites:
“The governments which reasserted themselves after the revolutions we=
re
much stronger than their pre-revolutionary predecessors. To some extent this
was merely a matter of physical factors. The new railways were making it ea=
sier
than ever before to move soldiers quickly to crush rebellion before it could
offer a serious threat. They also made it possible to transport food rapidl=
y to
areas of dearth and thus stave off the famine which alone could produce mass
disorder. The new telegraph was allowing a central government to be informed
almost instantaneously of events in the most distant parts of its territory,
and thus to control these events and still more the day-to-day activity of =
its
own officials. More fundamentally, however, the new regimes of the 1850s
embodied attitudes different from those of the age of Metternich, and refle=
cted
a changing intellectual climate. Positivism and materialism were now helpin=
g to
give to the actions of governments a cutting edge of ruthlessness, as well =
as
an energy which they had generally lacked before 1848. In France Louis Napo=
leon
had dreams, and capacities for good and evil, which were quite beyond the s=
cope
of Louis-Philippe, as well as an apparatus of political control much more
efficient than any possessed by his predecessor. In the Habsburg Empire, Ba=
ch
and Kübeck, the dominant ministers of the 1850s, were men of a very
different stamp from Metternich. In Prussia, now beginning a period of
spectacular economic growth, the medievalist dreams of Frederick William IV=
had
lost all significance before he himself collapsed into insanity in 1858.
Tempered by the fires of successfully resisted revolution, fortified by new
technical aids and helped by a favourable economic climate, the governments=
of
Europe were entering a new era…”[533]
Of course, this
positivist stamp on post-1848 governments guaranteed a further decay in the
foundations of Christian society and therefore a bringing closer of the tri=
umph
of the revolution. But that was not how the disillusioned revolutionaries
themselves – that is, those who had not changed sides, who had not be=
en
bought, who refused to work from within the system – saw it. All beli=
eved
that a proletarian revolution was not on the cards for at least another
generation.
With the failure=
of
the 1848 revolution, Marx and Engels set about a fundamental rethink of the=
ir
theory and its prognoses. Now they thought that society had to go through a=
ll
the stages of bourgeois development before the proletariat could rise up and
take power. That meant that the revolution would not come first in peasant
societies such as Russia (the peasantry had proved frustratingly conservati=
ve
in 1848), but in highly industrialised ones, such as Britain or Germany, as=
the
proletariat there became poorer and poorer. Nor did they see any role for t=
he
smaller nations who, like the Croats in 1848, had fought on the side of
counter-revolution.[534] Bu=
t in
all these predictions they turned out to be wrong: in western Europe no
revolution took place as the workers’ lot was improved by trade-union
agitation from below and prudent concessions from above, while in the East
revolution did break out in peasant Russia – with the vital help of t=
he
smaller nations, especially the Jews and the Poles...
“Another f=
or
whom the years 1849-51 was a kind of watershed was [Thomas] Carlyle (the
Thus did 1848=
217;s
“springtime of the nations” turn into a “winter of
discontent”… Although the monarchists had triumphed, the=
re
was no going back to the old era of reaction: there were few who believed t=
hat
the tide of history was returning their way. As for those on the left, not =
only
revolutionaries like Marx and Herzen, but also moderate liberals like the
historian Johann Gustav Droysen felt that the “miasma of the
fifties”, as Nietzsche put it, compared badly with the idealism of the
forties. “Our spiritual life is deteriorating rapidly; its dignity, i=
ts
idealism, its intellectual integrity are vanishing… Meanwhile the exa=
ct
sciences grow in popularity; establishments flourish where pupils will one =
day
form the independent upper middle class as farmers, industrialists, merchan=
ts,
technicians and so one; their education and outlook will concentrate wholly=
on
material issues. At the same time the universities are declining… At
present all is instability, chaos, ferment and disorder. The old values are
finished, debased, rotten, beyond salvation and the new ones are as yet
unformed, aimless, confused, merely destructive… we live in one of the
great crises that lead from one epoch of history to the next…”[536]
One of the reaso=
ns for
the failure of the 1848 revolution was that the Masons, most of whom were
wealthy, drew back from taking the revolution to its logical extreme. This =
is
understandable. However, it is still surprising, and worthy of investigatio=
n,
why they should have blessed (eventually) the formation of a dictatorship in
France under Louis Napoleon.
Ridley writes:
“On 10 December 1848 the election was held for the new President of t=
he
Republic. The Freemasons’ journal, Le Franc-Maçon, called =
on
its readers to vote for Lamartine [though he was not a Mason], because he
believed in ‘the sacred words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’; =
but
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (who would soon become the Emperor Napoleon III) w=
as
elected by a very large majority; he defeated Cavaignac, Ledru-Rollin, the
Socialist François Raspail, and Lamartine, receiving 75 per cent of =
the
votes cast, and coming top of the poll in all except four of the eighty-five
departments of France. He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, =
and
in his youth had been involved in the revolutionary movement in Italy in 18=
31.
It has been suggested that he joined the Carbonari and the Freemasons in It=
aly,
but this cannot be proved. He afterwards tried twice to make a revolution
against Louis Philippe, and on the second occasion was sentenced to life
imprisonment in the fortress at Ham near St Quentin in north-eastern France;
but he made a sensational escape, took refuge in England, and returned to P=
aris
to his electoral triumph in 1848.
“Although =
he had
been suspected at one time of being a Communist, as soon as he was elected
President of the Republic he relied on the support of the Right wing and the
Catholic Church. Young Radicals who flaunted red cravats, and shouted
‘Long live the Social Republic!’ were sentenced to several
years’ imprisonment. From time to time a Freemasons’ lodge was
raided by the police, and warnings were sent by local officials to the
government that ‘members of the anarchist party’ were planning =
to
gain control of the Masonic lodges in Paris and the provinces.
“The Grand
Orient thought it would be wise to revise their constitution. In 1839, when
they were living happily under Louis Philippe, they had stated that
‘Masonry is a universal philanthropic association’ and that one=
of
their objectives was ‘the examination and discussion of all social and
economic questions which concern the happiness of humanity’. In August
1848, after the June Days and the legislation suppressing secret political
societies, they changed this article in their constitution by deleting the
words ‘social and economic’; and a year later, on 10 August 184=
9,
Grand Orient stated that all Freemasons must believe in God and in the
immortality of the soul.”[537]
When, in additio=
n to
this, Napoleon sent his troops to crush the Roman republic under Mazzini, it
must have seemed that the Masons would now, at last, turn against him. And
indeed, when he established his dictatorship on December 2, 1851, “th=
ere
was an attempt at resistance in Paris next day, led by the deputy Baudin, a
Freemason.”[538]
However, Baudin was shot on the barricade; and when Napoleon held a plebisc=
ite
on whether he should continue as President of the Republic for ten years, t=
he
Grand Orient called on all Freemasons to vote for him.
Some light is ca=
st on
this mystery by Tikhomirov: “According to the very weighty of Deschampes [the historian of
Freemasonry], the empire of Louis Napoleon was considered desirable. This
became known to Deschampes through Michelet, who played an important role in
revolutionary circles, but was a personal friend of Deschampes.
“Soon afte=
r the
coup of 1851 (more precisely: on February 7, 1852), Michelet wrote to
Deschampes: ‘By this time a great convention of the heads of the Euro=
pean
societies had taken place in Paris, where they discussed France. Only three
members (whose leader was Mazzini) demanded a democratic republic. A huge
majority thought that a dictatorship would better serve the work of the
revolution – and the empire was decreed ‘sur les promesses
formelles’ (on the basis of the formal promises) of Louis Napoleo=
n to
give all the forces of France to the services of Masonry.[539] All
the people of the revolution applied themselves to the success of the state
coup. Narvaets, who was in obedience to Palmerston [British Prime Minister =
in
1855-1858 and from 1859], even loaned Louis Napoleon 500,000 francs not long
before December 2.’
“If Napole=
on III
really gave ‘formal promises’, then this could refer only to the
unification of Italy, and consequently, to the fate of the Pope’s sec=
ular
dominion. Deschampes has no evidence concerning Louis Napoleon’s
membership of Masonry, otherwise than in the form of Carbonarism. He had lo=
ng
belonged to the Carbonari in its Italian form, and as such was obliged to w=
ork
for the unification of Italy. For breaking this oath he was pursued by atte=
mpts
on his life, until, after Orsini’s attempt, he renewed his promise and
began to fulfil it, risking that the Pope would lose his dominions. But in
general Masonry protected Napoleon III. At any rate Palmerston, who had, as
they affirm, been the highest leader of European Masonry (the Orient of
Orients), supported Napoleon with all his strength, and, perhaps, would not
have allowed his fall, if he had not died five years before the Franco-Prus=
sian
War.”[540]
So here we see w=
hy
Napoleon was able to retain the support of the Masons, while supporting the=
ir
mortal enemy, the Catholic Church: he had a very powerful friend, Lord
Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, a former supreme head of Masonry=
230;
And it was Brita=
in
under Palmerston, France under Napoleon, the Pope and the Sultan, who worked
together to humble the real enemy of Masonry, Russia, in the Crimean=
War
of 1854-1856…
The World as Will: Schopenhauer
One of those who
profited from the change in mood after 1848 was the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer, whose main work, The World as Will and Idea, had been
written in 1819 but only now became popular. He became famous “becaus=
e of
historical trends which he would have disapproved of if he had been clear a=
bout
them: post-revolutionary disappointment of the middle class, a temporary la=
ck
of interest in politics. These trends helped Schopenhauer, who despised his=
tory
and politics…”[541]<=
/a>
While retaining =
German
idealism’s characteristic starting-point in psychology (or meta-psych=
ology),
and its post-Hegelian emphasis on history and becoming, Schopenhauer changed
its direction by arguing that the essence of reality, the
“thing-in-itself”, was not Idea or Mind or Reason, but Will<=
/i>.[542]<=
/a>
Not that he deni=
ed the
sphere of thought. Nevertheless, he ascribed the primacy to will over
knowledge, desire over thought; for Schopenhauer, knowledge and thought wer=
e at
all times the servants of will and desire. In this way he provided the
philosophical justification, as it were, of that critical transition in Ger=
man
life from the dreamy, brilliant but somewhat ineffective Romantic period to=
the
intensely active, enterpreneurial period that began after the 1848 revoluti=
on
and continued after 1871 into the German Empire. Moreover, the emphasis on =
will
and desire corresponded to the intense development of the science of bio=
logy
in this period.
Copleston asks:
“How does Schopenhauer arrive at the conviction that the thing-in-its=
elf
is Will? To find the key to reality I must look within myself. For in inner
consciousness or inwardly directed perception lies ‘the single narrow
door to the truth’. Through this inner consciousness I am aware that =
the
bodily action which is said to follow or result from volition is not someth=
ing
different from volition but one and the same. That is to say, the bodily ac=
tion
is simply the objectified will: it is the will become idea or presentation.
Indeed, the whole body is nothing but objectified will, will as a presentat=
ion
to consciousness. According to Schopenhauer anyone can understand this if he
enters into himself. And once he has this fundamental intuition, he has the=
key
to reality. He has only to extend his discovery to the world at large.
“This
Schopenhauer proceeds to do. He sees the manifestation of the one individual
Will in the impulse by which the magnet turns to the north pole, in the
phenomena of attraction and repulsion, in gravitation, in animal instinct, =
in
human desire and so on. Wherever he looks, whether in the inorganic or in t=
he
organic sphere, he discovers empirical confirmation of his thesis that
phenomena constitute the appearance of the one metaphysical Will.
“The natur=
al
question to ask is this. If the thing-in-itself is manifested in such diver=
se
phenomena as the universal forces of Nature, such as gravity, and human
volition, why call it ‘Will’? Would not ‘Force’ or
‘Energy’ be a more appropriate term, especially as the so-called
Will, when considered in itself, is said to be ‘without knowledge and
merely a blind incessant impulse’, ‘an endless striving’?=
For
the term ‘Will’, which implies rationality, seems to be hardly
suitable for describing a blind impulse or striving.
“Schopenha=
uer,
however, defends his linguistic usage by maintaining that we ought to take =
our
descriptive term from what is best known to us. We are immediately consciou=
s of
our own volition. And it is more appropriate to describe the less well know=
n in
terms of the better known than the other way round.
“Besides b=
eing
described as blind impulse, endless striving, eternal becoming and so on, t=
he
metaphysical Will is characterized as the Will to live. Indeed, to say
‘the Will’ and to say ‘the Will to live’ are for
Schopenhauer one and the same thing. As, therefore, empirical reality is the
objectification or appearance of the metaphysical Will, it necessarily
manifests the Will to live. And Schopenhauer has not difficulty in multiply=
ing
examples of this manifestation. We have only to look at Nature’s conc=
ern
for the maintenance of the species. Birds, for instance, build nests for the
young which they do not yet know. Insects deposit their eggs where the larva
may find nourishment. The whole series of phenomena of animal instinct
manifests the omnipresence of the Will to live. If we look at the untiring
activity of bees and ants and ask what it all leads to, what is attained by=
it,
we can only answer ‘the satisfaction of hunger and the sexual
instinct’, the means, in other words, of maintaining the species in l=
ife.
And if we look at man with his industry and trade, with his inventions and
technology, we must admit that all this striving serves in the first instan=
ce
only to sustain and to bring a certain amount of additional comfort to
ephemeral individuals in their brief span of existence, and through them to
contribute to the maintenance of the species…
“Now, if t=
he
Will is an endless striving, a blind urge or impulse which knows no cessati=
on,
it cannot find satisfaction or reach a state of tranquillity. It is always
striving and never attaining. And this essential feature of the metaphysical
Will is reflected in its self-objectification, above all in human life. Man
seeks satisfaction, happiness, but he cannot attain it. What we call happin=
ess
or enjoyment is simply a temporary cessation of desire. And desire, as the
expression of a need or want, is a form of pain. Happiness, therefore, is
‘the deliverance from a pain, from a want’; it is ‘really=
and
essentially always only negative and never positive’. It soon
turns to boredom, and the striving after satisfaction reasserts itself. It =
is
boredom which makes beings who love one another so little as men do seek one
another’s company. And great intellectual powers simply increase the
capacity for suffering and deepen the individual’s isolation.
“Each indi=
vidual
thing, as an objectification of the one Will to live, strives to assert its=
own
existence at the expense of other things. Hence the world is the field of
conflict, a conflict which manifests the nature of the Will as at variance =
with
itself, as a tortured Will. And Schopenhauer finds illustrations of this
conflict even in the inorganic sphere. But it is naturally to the organic a=
nd
human spheres that he chiefly turns for empirical confirmation of his thesi=
s.
He dwells, for example, on the ways in which animals of one species prey on
those of another. And when he comes to man, he really lets himself go.
‘The chief source of the most serious evils which afflict man is man
himself: homo homini lupus. Whoever keeps
this last fact clearly in view sees the world as a hell which surpasses tha=
t of
Dante through the fact that one man must be the devil of another.’ War
and cruelty are, of course, grist for Schopenhauer’s mill. And the man
who showed no sympathy with the Revolution of 1848 speaks in the sharpest t=
erms
of industrial exploitation, slavery and such like social abuses.
“We may no=
t that
it is the egoism, rapacity and hardness and cruelty of men which are for
Schopenhauer the real justification of the State. So far from being a divine
manifestation, the State is simply the creation of enlightened egoism which
tries to make the world a little more tolerable than it would otherwise
be.”[543]
The philosopher
understands that there is nothing other than this constant striving and
suffering, and therefore no other path for him except the decision to renou=
nce
the Will to live, which is the cause of all the suffering. This is not
accomplished through suicide, as one might expect, for suicide is in fact an
attempt to escape certain evils, and therefore the expression of a concealed
will to live. Only two things relieve the bleakness of this nihilist vision=
to
any degree: art and asceticism.
In the contempla=
tion
of art – especially music, which exhibits the inner nature of the Wil=
l,
the thing-in-itself – desire is temporarily stilled. For “it is
possible for me to regard the beautiful object neither as itself an object =
of
desire nor as a stimulant to desire but simply and solely for its aesthetic
significance.”[544]<=
/a>
However,
“aesthetic contemplation affords no more than a temporary or transient
escape from the slavery of the Will. But Schophenhauer offers a lasting rel=
ease
through renunciation of the Will to live. Indeed, moral progress must take =
this
form if morality is possible at all. For the Will to live, manifesting itse=
lf
in egoism, self-assertion, hatred and conflict, is for Schopenhauer the sou=
rce
of evil. ‘There really resides in the heart of each of us a wild beast
which only waits the opportunity to rage and rave in order to injure others,
and which, if they do not prevent it, would like to destroy them.’ Th=
is
wild beast, this radical evil, is the direct expression of the Will to live.
Hence morality, if it is possible, must involve denial of the Will. And as =
man
is an objectification of the Will, denial will mean self-denial, asceticism=
and
mortification.”[545]<=
/a>
“We must b=
anish
the dark impression of that nothingness which we discern behind all virtue =
and
holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as children fear the dark; =
we
must not even evade it like the Indians, through myths and meaningless word=
s,
such as reabsorption in Brahma or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Rather do we
freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abolition of will is =
for
all those who are still full of will certainly nothing; but, conversely, to
those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world, wh=
ich
is so real, with all its suns and milky ways – is nothing.”[546]<=
/a>
With the surrend=
er of
the Will, “all those phenomena are also abolished; that constant stra=
in
and effort without end and without rest at all the grades of objectivity in
which and through which the world consists; the multifarious forms succeedi=
ng
each other in gradation; the whole manifestation of the will; and, finally,
also the universal forms of this manifestation, time and space, and also its
last fundamental form, subject and object; all are abolished. No will: no i=
dea,
no world. Before us there is certainly only nothingness.”[547]<=
/a>
So, contrary to =
the
Christian vision, there is no positive end to the self-denial that Schopenh=
auer
recommends. Nor could there be. For there is nothing other than the Will to
live, which is neither God nor any positive ideal, but pure egoism
“objectified” in various forms and ending in death. The most a =
man
can hope for as a result of his self-denial is to “penetrate the veil=
of
Maya [illusion] to the extent of seeing that all individuals are really one.
For they are all phenomena of the one undivided Will. We then have the ethi=
cal
level of sympathy. We have goodness or virtue which is characterized by a
disinterested love of others. True goodness is not, as Kant thought, a matt=
er
of obeying the categorical imperative for the sake of duty alone. True good=
ness
is love, agape or
However, the exi=
stence
of a “true and pure love” attainable by philosophy and self-den=
ial
seems to be inconsistent with the premises of Schopenhauer’s system (=
and
personal life). For how can there be a selfless love when all that exists is
the selfish Will to live? Indeed, for Schopenhauer “existence, life, =
is
itself a crime: it is our original sin. And it is inevitably expiated by
suffering and death.”[549]<=
/a>
Since for Schopenhauer there is no paradisal innocence, but only original s=
in,
there can be no escape from sin, and no return to paradise, but only the va=
in
and self-contradictory attempt of existence to deny itself, of being not to
be…
SchopenhauerR=
17;s
vision represents a significant new turn in European philosophy. On the one
hand, it reflects the highly practical spirit (will rather than mind=
) of
the early industrial age. On the other hand, it reflects the underlying
scepticism and cynicism of the post-1848 age in which it was read (rather t=
han
the age it was written). Gone is the optimism of the Enlightenment, and its
belief in reason and the perfectibility of man; gone, too, the innocence and
freshness of the first wave of Romanticism. In its place we find Byronic
despair and the Wagnerian death-wish[550]<=
/a>,
the despair of a man who has cut himself off from the last vestiges of
Christian faith[551]<=
/a>,
who believes neither in God nor in anything else except his baser instincts,
and is preparing to escape from his suffering by plunging into what he insi=
sts
will be a sea of nothingness, but which he fears will be something very dif=
ferent
and much more terrifying…
“What Gali=
leo
and Newton were to the seventeenth century,” writes Russell,
“Darwin was to the nineteenth. Darwin’s theory had two parts. O=
n he
one hand, there was the doctrine of evolution, which maintained that the
different forms of life had developed gradually from a common ancestry. This
doctrine, which is now generally accepted, was not new. It had been maintai=
ned
by Lamarck and by Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus, not to mention Anaxim=
ander.
Darwin supplied an immense mass of evidence for the doctrine, and in the se=
cond
part of his theory believed himself to have discovered the cause of evoluti=
on.
He thus gave to the doctrine a popularity and a scientific force which it h=
ad
not previously possessed, but he by no means originated it.
“The secon=
d part
of Darwin’s theory was the struggle for existence and the survival of=
the
fittest. All animals and plants multiply faster than nature can provide for
them; therefore in each generation many perish before the age for reproduci=
ng
themselves. What determines which will survive? To some extent, no doubt, s=
heer
luck, but there is another cause of more importance. Animals and plants are=
, as
a rule, not exactly like their parents, but differ slightly by excess or de=
fect
in every measurable characteristic. In a given environment, members of the =
same
species compete for survival, and those best adapted to the environment have
the best chance. Therefore among chance variations those that are favourabl=
e will
preponderate among adults in each generation. Thus from age to age deer run
more swiftly, cats stalk their prey more silently, and giraffes’ necks
become longer. Given enough time, this mechanism, so Darwin contended, could
account for the whole long development from the protozoa to homo sapiens=
.”[552]<=
/a>
“Given eno=
ugh
time…” Time – enormous amounts of it – was indeed a
critical ingredient in Darwin’s theory; some critics would say that it
took the place of a satisfactory causal mechanism. But such a theory chimed=
in
with the historicist temper of the times.
It also chimed i=
n with
the idea, as Barzun writes, “that everything is alive and in motion
– a dynamic universe, as modern jargon has it.”[553]
Liberals believed in progress, socialists believed in revolution, everyone =
with
the exception of a few diehards like the Pope believed that things had to
change, and that change was for the better. Above all, evolution appealed to
man’s pride, in the belief that man was destined for greater and grea=
ter
things. “You know,” says Lady Constance in Disraeli’s nov=
el Tancred
(1847), “all is development – the principle is perpetually
going on. First, there was nothing; then – I forget the next – I
think there were shells; then fishes; then we came – let me see ̵=
1;
did we come next? Never mind, we came at last and the next change will be
something very superior to us, something with wings…”[554]
It will be noted=
that
this was written twelve years before Darwin’s Origin of the Specie=
s (1859),
which shows that the “scientific” theory filled an emotional ne=
ed
already expressed by poets and novelists. Evidently not feeling this need
himself, Disraeli said that as between the idea that man was an ape or an
angel, he was “on the side of the angels”[555]; b=
ut
he forgot that, as Lady Constance had opined in his novel, evolution was for
many a way of attaining angelic status (“something with wings”)=
in
the very long run. For those who did not believe in the deification of man
through Christ, evolution provided another, secular form of deification.
This elicited th=
e not
unfounded derision of the conservatives. Thus Gobineau said that man was
“not descended from the apes, but rapidly getting there”.[556]
But it was the
Prophet-King David who put it best: “Man, being in honour, did not
understand; he is compared to the mindless cattle, and is become like unto
them” (Psalm 48.21).
Many found strong
logical and scientific objections to the theory. Nietzsche, for example,
pointed out, as Copleston writes, “that during most of the time taken=
up
in the formation of a certain organ or quality, the inchoate organ is of no=
use
to its possessor and cannot aid it in its struggle with external circumstan=
ces
and foes. ‘The influence of “external circumstances” is a=
bsurdly
overrated by Darwin. The essential factor in the vital process is
precisely the tremendous power to shape and create forms from within, a pow=
er
which uses and exploits the environment.’”[557]
Darwin may have =
waited
many years before publishing his theory because, as David Quammen writes, he
was anxious “about announcing a theory that seemed to challenge
conventional religious beliefs – in particular, the Christian beliefs=
of
his wife, Emma. Darwin himself quietly renounced Christianity during his mi=
ddle
age, and later described himself as an agnostic. He continued to believe in=
a
distant, impersonal deity of some sort, a greater entity that had set the
universe and its laws into motion, but not in a personal God who had chosen
humanity as a specially favored species. Darwin avoided flaunting his lack =
of
religious faith, at least partly in deference to Emma. And she prayed for h=
is
soul…”[558]
The model provid=
ed by
biological evolution was soon applied to the whole universe and everything =
in
it, so that physical evolution was joined onto biological evolution and hum=
an
and cultural evolution in one seamless fabric. It achieved what
eighteenth-century Deism had not felt strong enough to do – dethrone =
God
from His last refuge in “enlightened” minds as First Cause and
Creator. And Comte’s ideal of science explaining everything seemed cl=
oser
to fulfilment…
“In the
beginning” now was not “the Word” (i.e. Divine Reason) but
mindless chaos, and “all things were made” not by God, but by b=
lind
mutation and “natural selection” (i.e. death). These were the t=
wo
hands of original Chaos, the father of all things – a conception as o=
ld
as the pre-Socratic philosophers Anixamander and Heraclitus and as
retrogressive as the pre-Christian religions of Egypt and Babylon. And they
looked forward, not to some golden age of an ever-perfecting and evolving
species, but to the chaos and destruction of the twentieth century.
C.S. Lewis wrote:
“By universal evolutionism I mean the belief that the very formula of
universal process is from imperfect to perfect, from small beginnings to gr=
eat
endings, from the rudimentary to the elaborate, the belief which makes peop=
le
find it natural to think that morality springs from savage taboos, adult
sentiment from infantile sexual maladjustments, thought from instinct, mind
from matter, organic from inorganic, cosmos from chaos. This is perhaps the
deepest habit of mind in the contemporary world. It seems to me immensely
implausible, because it makes the general course of nature so very unlike t=
hose
parts of nature we can observe. You remember the old puzzle as to whether t=
he
owl came from the egg or the egg from the owl. The modern acquiescence in
universal evolutionism is a kind of optical illusion, produced by attending
exclusively to the owl’s emergence from the egg. We are taught from
childhood to notice how the perfect oak grows from the acorn and to forget =
that
the acorn itself was dropped by a perfect oak. We are reminded constantly t=
hat
the adult human being was an embryo, never that the life of the embryo came
from two adult human beings. We love to notice that the express engine of t=
oday
is the descendant of the ‘Rocket’; we do not equally remember t=
hat
the ‘Rocket’ springs not from some even more rudimentary engine=
, but
from something much more perfect and complicated than itself – namely=
, a
man of genius. The obviousness or naturalness which most people seem to fin=
d in
the idea of emergent evolution thus seems to be a pure
hallucination…”[559]
Darwinism also f=
ormed
the basis of a completely anti-Christian system of morality. It implied that
there is no place for Divine Providence, and that “might is rightR=
21;.
As St. Barsanuphius of Optina wrote: “The English philosopher Darwin
created an entire system according to which life is a struggle for existenc=
e, a
struggle for the strong against the weak, where those that are conquered are
doomed to destruction… This is already the beginning of a bestial
philosophy, and those who come to believe in it wouldn’t think twice
about killing a man, assaulting a woman, or robbing their closest friend
– and they would do all this calmly, with a full recognition of their
right to commit their crimes.”[560]
Darwin’s
evolutionary biology fits Schopenhauer’s metaphysical philosophy like=
a
glove. For both the blind, selfish Will to live is everything; for both the=
re
is neither intelligent design nor selfless love, but only the struggle to
survive. And if Schopenhauer’s striving for nothingness recalls the
Buddhist nirvana, Darwin’s idea of species evolving into each
other recalls the Hindu idea of reincarnation…
Schopenhauer in
metaphysics, Darwin in science, and Marx in political theory formed a kind =
of
unholy consubstantial trinity, whose essence was Will.[561]<=
/a> Marx liked Darwinism bec=
ause it
appeared to justify the idea of class struggle as the fundamental mechanism=
of
human evolution. “The idea of class struggle logically flows from
‘the law of the struggle for existence’. It is precisely by this
law that Marxism explains the emergence of classes and their struggle, when=
ce
logically proceeds the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead=
of
racist pre-eminence class pre-eminence is preached.”[562]
However, Darwini=
sm was
also congenial to Marxism because of its blind historicism and implicit
atheism. As Wurmbrand notes: “After Marx had read The Origin of
Species by Charles Darwin, he wrote a letter to Lassalle in which he ex=
ults
that God – in the natural sciences at least – had been given
‘the death blow’”.[563]
“Karl Marx,” writes Hieromonk Damascene, “was a devout
Darwinist, who in Das Kapital called Darwin’s theory ‘ep=
och
making’. He believed his reductionist, materialistic theories of the
evolution of social organization to be deducible from Darwin’s
discoveries, and thus proposed to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. The
funeral oration over Marx’s body, delivered by Engels, stressed the
evolutionary basis of communism: ‘Just as Darwin discovered the law of
evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in hum=
an
history.’”[564]
“The years=
after
1870,” writes Gareth Stedman Jones, “were dominated by the pres=
tige
of the natural sciences, especially that of Darwin. Playing to these
preoccupations, Engels presented Marx’s work, not as a theory of
communism or as a study of capitalism, but as the foundation of a parallel
‘science of historical materialism’. Socialism had made a
transition from ‘utopia’ to ‘science’”...[565]
4.
THE EAST: THE GENDARME OF EUROPE
The root elements of our Russian life =
have
been characterised long ago, and they are so powerfully and completely
expressed by the familiar words: Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality. That=
is
what we must preserve! When these principles become weaker or fail, the Rus=
sian
people will cease to be Russian. It will then lose its sacred three-coloured
flag.
Bishop Theophan the Recluse.[566]
The hegemony of
the Church I do not understand in the form of an inquisition or of persecut=
ion
for faith; it consists in the State’s setting itself the task (1) of
becoming imbued with the spirit of the Church, and (2) of seeing in its own
existence only a means for the best establishment of the Church of God on
earth.
Ivan Kireevs=
ky.
Beneficent Eur=
ope
has taught us external arts and sciences,
But it takes a=
way
our inner goodness and shakes our Orthodox Faith.
It draws money=
to
itself.
St. Macarius of
Optina.
Introduction:
Instinct and Consciousness
Under the shock =
of the
Decembrist rebellion, and of the resumption of the revolution’s march=
in
Europe, it was necessary for Russia clearly to formulate the foundations of=
her
national life, and her religio-moral-political differences from Europe. This
process now began, in informal discussion circles in St. Petersburg and in
elegant aristocratic salons in Moscow.
“And so the
development of the monarchical principle, its self-consciousness, in this
period could not fail to decline. It was preserved amongst us in accordance
with the former voice of instinct, but it was not explained by reason.
Therefore of all the aspects of scientific creativity, the state-legal rema=
ined
throughout the new period the least developed among us, as well as being the
most imitative, the most imbued by a simple copying of European ideas, and =
for
that reason – in conformity with the state thought of Europe –
assumed a constitutional character.
“The legit=
imists
in Europe in their time were the channels of the monarchical idea. Our
juridical thought was the channel of the anti-monarchical, democratic idea.=
“When the =
question
of limiting the autocracy or even of external external manifestations of the
power of the Monarch in international relations was raised, voices were fou=
nd
among us which pointed to some close bond between the Tsar and Russia, a bo=
nd
that was a limitation for the Monarch. By this absolutism was denied, as was
the teaching that the sovereign can order everything ‘as he likesR=
17;.
The political thought of Russian State law was as it were raised to the lev=
el
of consciousness.
“Thus at t=
he
moment when Emperor Alexander I, who had been brought up on republican ideas
and considered the republic higher than the monarchy, was thinking about
limiting his own autocratic power, he heard an eloquent protest from Karamz=
in.
“’If
Alexander,’ wrote Karamzin, ‘inspired by a magnanimous hatred f=
or
the abuses of autocracy, had taken a pen to prescribe for himself new laws
besides those of God and conscience, then the true Russian citizen would ha=
ve
been so bold as to stop his hand and say: Your Majesty, you are transgressi=
ng
the bounds of your power. Taught by long-term disasters, Russia entrusted t=
he
autocracy to your forebear before the holy altar and demanded that he rule =
her
supremely and undividedly. This covenant is the foundation of your power: we
have no other. You can do everything, but you cannot lawfully limit your
power.’
“In his no=
te,
‘The Opinion of a Russian Citizen’, given to the sovereign in 1=
819
with reference to plans for the restoration of Poland, Karamzin tried to pr=
ove
again that the sovereign had no right to do this:
“’You
think,’ writes Karamzin, ‘to restore the ancient kingdom of Pol=
and,
but is this restoration in accordance with the law of the State good of Rus=
sia?
Is it in accordance with Your sacred duties, with Your love for Russia and
justice itself?… Do the sovereigns not swear to preserve the integrit=
y of
their domains? These lands (that is, Belorussia, Lithuania, Volhynia and
Podolia) were already Russia when Metropolitan Plato entrusted to you the c=
rown
of Monomakh, Peter and Catherine… Will they say that they unlawfully
divided Poland? But You would be acting still more unlawfully if You though=
t to
wipe out its injustice by dividing Russia herself. We took Poland by the sw=
ord:
that is our right, to which all States are obliged for their existence, for=
all
have been constituted from conquests. Catherine is responsible before God, =
and
before history, for her act, but it is already done, and for You it is alre=
ady
holy: for You Poland is a lawful Russian dominion. There are no old deeds of
purchase in politics: otherwise we would be bound to re-establish the Kazan=
and
Astrakhan kingdoms, the Novgorod republic, the great Princedom of Ryazan, e=
tc.
Moreover, even according to the old deeds of purchase Belorussia, Volhynia =
and
Podolia, together with Galicia, were once the indigenous heritage of
Russia…
“’Un=
til
now,’ he continues, ‘our rule was: not a step to an enemy, not a
step to a friend. Napoleon was able to conquer Russia, but You, although You
are an Autocrat, were not able to cede to him a single Russian hut for free.
That is our character and our State character… Your Majesty, I would
vouch my life to You that an inevitable consequence of the wholesale
restoration of Poland would be the loss, not only of our beautiful province=
s,
but also of our love for the Tsar; we would cool in soul in our feeling for=
the
Fatherland, seeing it become the plaything of self-willed caprice…=
217;
“In these
interesting reasonings we catch the voice of feeling which Karamzin had in =
his
heart and wanted to stir up in the heart of the Sovereign. But from the poi=
nt
of view of principle this is all very unclear and even questionable: Karamz=
in
even refers to some pact between the tsar and the people when the dynasty w=
as
elected, although, of course, if that was the whole issue then the pact agr=
eed
upon by the parties could always be reviewed and changed. In his reasonings=
on
Poland Karamzin bases everything on the obligation to preserve tradition=
230;
This, of course, is easily refuted. Nevertheless a certain truth can be felt
here, the rejection of absolute power and an indication of the bond between=
the
Tsar and the nation, a bond which serves as the source of the Tsar’s
obligations.
“Instinctu=
al
feelings surfaced in Russia sufficiently constantly, but there was very lit=
tle
consciousness, very little theory of Tsarist power and the mutual relatins =
of
Tsar and people.
“This
consciousness became the more necessary in that bureaucratic practice
inexorably brought to us the idea of absolutism, while the European influen=
ce,
affirming that Tsarist power was nothing other than absolutism, rejected it=
. In
the 19th century Russian thought was sharply divided into
‘westernizers’ and ‘Slavophiles’, and the whole of =
the
westernising part conducted propaganda against autocracy…
“Throughou=
t the
19th century the whole current of educated westernising thought,
which created the so-called ‘intelligentsia’, conducted propaga=
nda
against autocracy – in Russia as far as censorship allowed it, and wi=
th
complete openness in its press abroad. The national part of educated society
could not help trying to defend its historical Russian institution of monar=
chy.
The schism in the educated part of Russia between the
‘westernizers’ (under various names) and the national part of t=
he
educated class grew still wider after 1861. Moreover, in the
‘westernizing’ tendency there developed a terrible rejection of
everything that was typically Russian, while its ideas gained great strengt=
h in
all the middle educated classes and encompassed the whole people. This
struggle, which embraced every aspect of life, was concentrated especially
strongly on the autocracy, as a principle and as an institution.
“In this l=
ong
historical period the monarchical idea was nevertheless clarified to a cert=
ain
degree. The words of our great artists – Pushkin, Gogol, A. Majkov and
others – sound as excellent expressions of the monarchical consciousn=
ess. [567] But
all these were expressions of feeling, manifestations of instinct, which wa=
s so
strong in the Russian personality generally that quite often it unexpectedly
appears even in the most extreme deniers, as, for example, Bakunin.
“But in the
sense of consciousness, the monarchical idea was clarified mainly by means =
of
public debates, in quarrels with opponents, no by a strictly scientific met=
hod.
Scientific works, which remained basically imitative, in general gave almost
nothing to clarify autocracy and most often served only to mix it up hopele=
ssly
with absolutism.
“In genera=
l, when
our statist scholars passed onto the soil of explaining autocracy, then in =
the
best case they repeated the judgements of the publicists. If the monarchical
idea of power was in any way clarified amongst us, then it was not in scien=
ce,
not in the study or auditorium of the professor and academic, but on the pa=
ges
of newspapers and journals, in the verbal disputes of the representatives of
the parties and tendencies. Russian political thought, insofar as it had any
success in the national spirit, was indebted in everything not to statist
science, which instilled European ideas and concept – but to the
publicists.
“Among its
representatives especially much was done by the Slavophiles in general and =
by
I.S. Aksakov in particular, and particularly by M.N. Katkov who stood behind
them….”[568]
However, before
discussing these debates between the westernizers and Slavophiles in more
detail, it is necessary to examine the work of the Tsar who dominated the
period, to the rage of the westernizers and even of some of the Slavophiles,
but to the undoubted benefit of the Church and State of Russia.
Tsar Nicholas had never been swayed by liberal ideas. Having tasted something of the flavour = of democratic life in France during the reign of his father, he said to Golenischev-Kutuzov: “If, to our misfortune, this evil genius transfe= rred all these clubs and meetings, which create more noise than substance, to us, then I would beseech God to repeat the miracle of the confusion of the tong= ues or, even better, deprive those who use their tongues in this way of the gif= t of speech.”[569] A = man of strict life and strict opinions, who was venerated by Saints Seraphim of Sarov and Theophilus of the Kiev Caves, his rule was made still stricter by= the fact that he came to the throne in the midst of the Decembrist rebellion. <= o:p>
Some have
portrayed the Tsar as having been unreasonably strict and censorious. Howev=
er,
he wanted to abolish serfdom, and took important preparatory measures towar=
ds
that great act carried out by his son. Moreover, he had the ability to conv=
ert,
and not simply crush, his opponents. Thus it was after a long, sincere
conversation with Pushkin that he was able to say: “Gentlemen, I pres=
ent
to you a new Pushkin!” “And it was truly thus,” writes
Lebedev. “Not out of fear before the authorities, not hypocritically,=
but
sincerely and truly, Pushkin, the friend of the ‘Decembrists’, =
the
worldly skiver, in life as in poetry, after 1826 renounced his free-thinking
and Masonry and created his best and greatest works!”[570]
“Having re=
jected
a rotten support, the nobility,” writes Lebedev, Tsar Nicholas
“made his supports the Orthodox Church, the system of state instituti=
ons
(in which the class of bureaucrats, of officials acquired great significanc=
e)
and the Russian people which he loved! Having grasped this main direction of
the Tsar’s politics, Count S. Uvarov, the minister of enlightenment
expressed it [on March 21, 1833] in the remarkable formula:
But the formula alone was not enoug=
h. It
had to be explained and clarified and defended: Orthodoxy against Catholici=
sm
and Protestantism, Autocracy against Absolutism and Liberal Democracy,
Nationhood against Socialist Internationalism and Phyletistic Nationalism.
Moreover, the priorities had to be understood: first Orthodoxy, then Autocr=
acy,
and then Nationhood. For the supreme value was Orthodoxy, whose first line =
of
defence was the Autocracy, which in turn was defended by national feeling. =
Any
attempt to invert this order – as, for example, to make Orthodoxy mer=
ely
a support for Autocracy, or both as supports of Nationhood, would be equiva=
lent
to idolatry and lead to the downfall of Russia.
Some, such as D.=
S.
Khomiakov, thought that an inversion of this order, placing Autocracy as the
supreme value, did indeed take place.[572]<=
/a>
However, this is not the view of Protopriest Lev Lebedev, who writes:
“Beginning already with Paul I, the rapprochement of imperial power w=
ith
the Church continued under Nicholas I, being raised to a qualitatively high=
er
level. The All-Russian Autocrat from now on did not oppose himself to the
Church and did not even consider himself ‘self-sufficient’ or
‘independent’ of her. On the contrary, he saw himself as a fait=
hful
son of the Orthodox Church, completely sharing the faith of his people and
bound in all his politics to be guided by the commandments of God, proceedi=
ng
precisely from the Orthodox world-view (and not from the demands of a
certain non-existent ‘religion of nature’, as under Catherine I=
I).
This was a good, grace-filled radical change. It made itself immedia=
tely
felt also in the relations of the two powers – the tsar’s and t=
he
Church’s. From now on the over-procurators of the Synod were people w=
ho
enjoyed the respect and trust of the Russian hierarchs and considered
themselves faithful children of the Church. Such were Admiral Shishkov and
Count Protasov. There was not always unanimity between them and the members=
of
the Synod. Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov), for example, more than once
‘warred’ with Protasov. But these were quarrels about separate
matters, where both sides were governed by the single desire to benefit Holy
Orthodoxy (even if they understood this differently).”[573]<=
/a>
This beneficial =
change
in Church-State relations was reflected in the extremely important, success=
ful
and (western cavillers notwithstanding) voluntary reunion of the uni=
ates
in the western territories with the Orthodox Church. Favourable conditions =
for
this change had been created by the fall of Poland in 1815, the expulsion of
the Jesuits from Russia in 1820 and the suppression of the Polish rebellion=
in
1830-1831. Then, in 1835, a secret committee on the uniate question was for=
med
in St. Petersburg consisting of the uniate bishop Joseph Semashko, the real
soul of the movement, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, the over-procurator =
of
the Holy Synod and the minister of the interior. By 1839 1,600,000 had
converted to Orthodoxy.[574]<=
/a>
In spite of these
positive changes, it must be admitted that there was no formal chang=
e in
the Tsar’s relationship to the Church, which continued to fall short =
of
the symphonic ideal. In 1832 he published a new collection of the Fundament=
al
Laws of the Empire[575], w=
hich
included the article: “The Emperor as the Christian sovereign is the
supreme defender and preserver of the dogmas of the dominant faith and the
supervisor of right faith and every good order in the Holy Church”. In
the administration of the Church, intoned articles 42 and 43, “the au=
tocratic
power acts by means of the Holy Governing Synod, which was founded by
it.”
And yet when the=
re
were clashes between the Tsar and the hierarchs on matters of conscience, t=
he
Tsar showed himself ready to give way, which gives strength to Lebedev̵=
7;s
claim that a qualitatively higher level of Church-State relations had been
attained. Thus once Metropolitan Philaret refused to bless a triumphal monu=
ment
because it had some pagan hieroglyphs and unseemly figures representing pag=
an
gods on it. The Emperor, showing a good grasp of church history, said: R=
20;I
understand, but tell him [Philaret] that I am not Peter the Great and he is=
not
St. Metrophanes.” Nevertheless, he allowed Philaret not to take part =
in
the ceremony.[576]
According to another account, on hearing of Philaret’s disinclination=
to
serve, the Emperor said: “Prepare the horses; I’m leaving
today”, so that the ceremony took place without either Tsar or
metropolitan.[577]
Afterwards, on returning to the Trinity Lavra, Philaret said to his spiritu=
al
father, Archimandrite Anthony: “Did I act well? I annoyed the Tsar. I
don’t have the merits of the hierarch Metrophanes.”
“Don’t take them upon yourself,” replied Fr. Anthony,
“but remember that you are a Christian bishop, a pastor of the Church=
of
Christ, to whom only one thing is terrible: to depart from the will of Jesus
Christ.” Then the hierarch revealed that the previous night St. Sergi=
us
had entered his locked room, come up to his bed, and said: “Don’=
;t
be disturbed, it will all pass…”[578]
Again, in 1835 t=
he
Emperor wanted his son and heir, the Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, to be=
come
a member of the Holy Synod. But Metropolitan Philaret, together with the ot=
her
hierarchs, was against the idea, and on meeting the tsarevich once, asked h=
im
when he had received clerical ordination. This forced the tsarevich to refr=
ain
from attending sessions of the Holy Synod.[579]
When the English=
man
William Palmer criticised the dominance of the State over the Church in Rus=
sia,
Alexis Khomiakov replied: “That the Church is not quite independent of
the state, I allow; but let us consider candidly and impartially how far th=
at
dependence affects, and whether it does indeed affect, the character of the
Church. The question is so important, that is has been debated during this =
very
year [1852] by serious men in Russia, and has been brought, I hope, to a
satisfactory conclusion. A society may be dependent in fact and free in
principle, or vice-versa. The first case is a mere historical accident; the
second is the destruction of freedom, and has no other issue by rebellion a=
nd
anarchy. The first is the weakness of man; the second the depravity of law.=
The
first is certainly the case in Russia, but the principles are by no means
deteriorated. Whether freedom of opinion in civil and political questions i=
s,
or is not, too much restrained, is no business of ours as members of the Ch=
urch
(though I, for my part, know that I am almost reduced to complete silence);=
but
the state never interferes directly in the censorship of works written about
religious questions. In this respect, I will confess again that the censors=
hip
is, in my opinion, most oppressive; but that does not depend upon the state,
and is simply the fault of the over-cautious and timid prudence of the high=
er
clergy. I am very far from approving of it, and I know that very useful
thoughts and books are lost in the world, or at least to the present
generation.
“But this =
error,
which my reason condemns, has nothing to do with ecclesiastical liberty; and
though very good tracts and explanations of the Word of God are oftentimes
suppressed on the false supposition of their perusal being dangerous to
unenlightened minds, I think that those who suppress the Word of God itself
should be the last to condemn the excessive prudence of our ecclesiastical
censors. Such a condemnation coming from the Latins would be absurdity itse=
lf.
But is the action of the Church quite free in Russia? Certainly not; but th=
is
depends wholly on the weakness of her higher representatives, and upon their
desire to get the protection of the state, not for themselves, generally
speaking, but for the Church. There is certainly a moral error in that want=
of
reliance upon God Himself; but it is an accidental error of persons, and no=
t of
the Church, and has nothing to do with our religious convictions. It would =
be a
difference case, if there was the smallest instance of a dogmatic error, or
something near to it, admitted or suffered without protestation out of
weakness; but I defy anybody to find anything like that…”[580]
Bishop Ignatius
Brianchaninov: The Struggle against Westernism
Khomiakov’s
point is well taken. And yet the danger posed by the personal weakness of s=
ome
of the Church hierarchs, and their over-reliance on the power of the State,=
was
perhaps greater than he realised. The danger was the greater in that the
educated classes were gradually losing the savour of True Christianity, whi=
ch
meant that in order for the Church to defend her position and increase her
influence, she would have to struggle, not only against a State that interf=
ered
too much in her internal affairs, but also against the secularist views of =
the
majority of the leading laymen in both Church and State.
One of the ways =
in
which this secularism was manifested was in tolerance for Christian heresie=
s to
the extent of placing them on a par with Orthodoxy. Thus in the 1850s the g=
reat
elder, St. Ambrose of Optina wrote: “Was any benefit gained by religi=
ous
tolerance in Russia in relation to foreign nations: the French and others, =
not to
speak of the Jew, who, as a people rejected by God, is despised by all, and
nowhere has any significance? Religious tolerance of the indicated nations
could have no influence on the simple people, because the way of life of our
simple people is completely different from the condition and situation of t=
hese
nations: but in the circle of Russian educated people this religious tolera=
nce
had a great influence on morality and on their domestic way of life. Now ma=
ny
educated people bear only the name of Orthodox, but in actual fact complete=
ly
adhere to the morals and customs of foreign lands and foreign beliefs. With=
out
any torment of conscience they violate the regulations of the Orthodox Chur=
ch
concerning fasts and gather together at balls and dances on the eves of gre=
at
Feasts of the Lord, when Orthodox Christians should be in church in prayerf=
ul
vigil. This would be excusable if such gatherings took place on the eves of
ordinary days, but not on the eves of Feasts, and especially great Feasts. =
Are
not such acts and deeds clearly inspired by our enemy, the destroyer of sou=
ls,
contrary to the commandment of the Lord which says: carry out your ordinary
affairs for six days, but the seventh (festal) day must be devoted to God in
pious service? How have Orthodox Christians come to such acts hated by God?=
It
is not for no other reason than indiscriminate communion with believers of
other faiths…”
The danger of wh=
at we
would not call ecumenist indifferentism was especially noted by Bishop Igna=
tius
Brianchaninov (+1867), who wrote: “You say, ‘heretics are
Christians just the same.’ Where did you take that from? Perhaps some=
one
or other calling himself a Christian while knowing nothing of Christ, may in
his extreme ignorance decide to acknowledge himself as the same kind of
Christian as heretics, and fail to distinguish the holy Christian faith from
those offspring of the curse, blasphemous heresies. Quite otherwise, howeve=
r,
do true Christians reason about this. A whole multitude of saints has recei=
ved
a martyr’s crown, has preferred the most cruel and prolonged tortures,
prison, exile, rather than agree to take part with heretics in their
blasphemous teaching.
“The Ecume=
nical
Church has always recognised heresy as a mortal sin; she has always recogni=
sed
that the man infected with the terrible malady of heresy is spiritually dea=
d, a
stranger to grace and salvation, in communion with the devil and the
devil’s damnation. Heresy is a sin of the mind; it is more a diabolic
than a human sin. It is the devil’s offspring, his invention; it is an
impiety that is near idol-worship. Every heresy contains in itself blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit, whether against the dogma or the action of the Holy
Spirit…”[581]
Bishop Ignatius =
was
pessimistic about the future of Russia: “It is evident that the apost=
asy
from the Orthodox faith is general among the people. One is an open atheist,
another is a deist, another a Protestant, another an indifferentist, anothe=
r a
schismatic. There is no healing or cure for this plague.” “What=
has
been foretold in the Scriptures is being fulfilled: a cooling towards the f=
aith
has engulfed both our people and all the countries in which Orthodoxy was
maintained up to now.” “Religion is falling in the people in
general. Nihilism is penetrating into the merchant class, from where it has=
not
far to go to the peasants. In most peasants a decisive indifference to the
Church has appeared, and a terrible moral disorder.”[582]
Especially signi=
ficant
were his words on the weakness of the institutional Church, sustained, as he
thought, by “elements of the world, things inimical to the ChurchR=
21;
– that is, probably, its caesaropapist union with the State: “We
are helpless to arrest this apostasy. Impotent hands will have no power aga=
inst
it and nothing more will be required than the attempt to withhold it. The
spirit of the age will reveal the apostasy. Study it, if you wish to avoid =
it,
if you wish to escape this age and the temptation of its spirits. One can
suppose, too, that the institution of the Church which has been tottering f=
or
so long will fall terribly and suddenly. Indeed, no one is able to stop or
prevent it. The present means to sustain the institutional Church are borro=
wed
from the elements of the world, things inimical to the Church, and the
consequence will be only to accelerate its fall. Nevertheless, the Lord
protects the elect and their limited number will be filled.”
Bishop Ignatius&=
#8217;
attacks on ecumenism and the influence of the western heresies on Russian
society and Church life marked the beginning of the return of Russian theol=
ogy
to the patristic traditions of the Ecumenical Church. He was highly valued =
by
the best of his contemporaries, such as Elder Anthony (Bochkov) of Optina, =
who
called him the finest writers and teacher on monasticism of his age, unriva=
lled
in his knowledge of the Holy Fathers, “a living library of the
Father”. He was also “the teacher of weeping, the new
Jeremiah”.[583]
One of Metropoli=
tan
Philaret of Moscow’s great achievements was a harmonious and
deeply-thought-out exposition of the nature of the State in Orthodox thinki=
ng.
He thought that “it was necessary for there to be a close union betwe=
en
the ruler and the people – a union, moreover, that was based exclusiv=
ely
on righteousness. The external expression of the prosperity of a state was =
the
complete submission of the people to the government. The government in a st=
ate
had to enjoy the rights of complete inviolability on the part of the subjec=
ts.
And if it was deprived of these rights, the state could not be firm, it was
threatened with danger insofar as two opposing forces would appear: self-wi=
ll
on the part of the subjects and predominance on the part of the government.
‘If the government is not firm,’ taught Philaret, ‘then t=
he
state also is not firm. Such a state is like a city built on a volcanic
mountain: what does its firmness signify when beneath it is concealed a for=
ce
which can turn it into ruins at any minute? Subjects who do not recognize t=
he
sacred inviolability of the rulers are incited by hope of self-will to atta=
in
self-will; an authority which is not convinced of its inviolability is inci=
ted
by worries about its security to attain predominance; in such a situation t=
he
state wavers between the extremes of self-will and predominance, between the
horrors of anarchy and repression, and cannot affirm in itself obedient
freedom, which is the focus and soul of social life.’
“The holy
hierarch understood the rebellion [of the Decembrists] as being a rebellion
against the State, against itself. ‘Subjects can themselves
understand,’ said Philaret, ‘that in destroying the authorities
they are destroying the constitution of society and consequently they are
themselves destroying themselves.’”[584]
Philaret, writes=
V.
Shokhin, “did not doubt that monarchical rule is ‘power from
God’ (Romans 13.1) in its significance for Russian history and
statehood, and more than once in his sermons expressed the most submissively
loyal feelings with regard to all the representatives of the Royal Family. =
But
he was one of the very few archpastors who had the courage to resist the
tendency – very characteristic of Russian conditions – to reduce
Orthodoxy to ‘glorification of the tsar’. Thus, contrary to many
hierarchs, who from feelings of servility warmly accepted Nicholas I’s
attempt to introduce the heir among the members of the Synod, he justly saw=
in
this a manifestation of caesaropapism…, and in the application of
attributes of the Heavenly King to the earthly king – a most dangerous
deformation of religious consciousness…, and in such phenomena as the
passing of a cross procession around statues of the emperor – a direct
return to paganism.”[585]
Metropolitan Phi=
laret,
as Fr. Georges Florovsky writes, “distinctly and firmly reminded peop=
le
of the Church’s independence and freedom, reminded them of the limits=
of
the state. And in this he sharply and irreconcilably parted with his epoch,
with the whole of the State’s self-definition in the new, Petersburgi=
an
Russia. Philaret was very reserved and quiet when speaking. By his intense =
and
courageous silence he with difficulty concealed and subdued his anxiety abo=
ut
what was happening. Through the vanity and confusion of events he saw and m=
ade
out the threatening signs of the righteous wrath of God that was bound to c=
ome.
Evil days, days of judgement were coming – ‘it seems that we are
already living in the suburbs of Babylon, if not in Babylon itself,’ =
he
feared… ‘My soul is sorrowful,’ admitted Metropolitan
Philaret once. ‘It seems to me that the judgement which begins at the
house of God is being more and more revealed… How thickly does the sm=
oke
come from the coldness of the abyss and how high does it mount’…
And only in repentance did he see an exit, in universal repentance ‘f=
or
many things, especially in recent years’.
“Philaret =
had
his own theory of the State, of the sacred kingdom. And in it there was not,
and could not be, any place for the principles of state supremacy. It is
precisely because the powers that be are from God, and the sovereigns rule =
by
the mercy of God, that the Kingdom has a completely subject and auxiliary
character. ‘The State as State is not subject to the Church’, a=
nd
therefore the servants of the Church already in the apostolic canons are st=
rictly
forbidden ‘to take part in the administration of the people’. N=
ot
from outside, but from within must the Christian State be bound by the law =
of
God and the ecclesiastical order. In the mind of Metropolitan Philaret, the
State is a moral union, ‘a union of free moral beings’ and a un=
ion
founded on mutual service and love – ‘a certain part of the gen=
eral
dominion of the Almighty, outwardly separate, but by an invisible power yok=
ed
into the unity of the whole’… And the foundation of power lies =
in
the principle of service. In the Christian State Philaret saw the Anointed =
of
God, and before this banner of God’s good will he with good grace
inclined his head. ‘The Sovereign receives the whole of his lawful=
ness
from the Church’s anointing’, that is, in the Church and
through the Church. Here the Kingdom inclines its head before the Priesthood
and takes upon itself the vow of service to the Church, and its right to ta=
ke
part in ecclesiastical affairs. He possesses this not by virtue of his
autocracy and authority, but precisely by virtue of his obedience and vow. =
And
this right does not extend or pass to the organs of state administration, a=
nd
between the Sovereign and the Church there cannot and must not be any divid=
ing
wall or mediation. The Sovereign is anointed, but not the State. The Sovere=
ign
enters into the Church, but the State as such remains outside the Church. A=
nd
for that reason it has no rights and privileges in the Church. In her inner
constitution the Church is completely independent, and has no need of the h=
elp
or defence of the secular authorities – ‘the altar does not fea=
r to
fall even without this protection’. For the Church is ruled by Christ
Himself, Who distributes and realizes ‘his own episcopacy of souls=
217;
through the apostolic hierarchy, which ‘is not similar to any form of
secular rule’.
“The Churc=
h has
her own inviolable code of laws, her own strength and privileges, which exc=
eed
all earthly measures. ‘In His word Jesus Christ did not outline for h=
er a
detailed and uniform statute, so that His Kingdom should not seem to be of =
this
world’… The Church has her own special form of action – in
prayer, in the service of the sacraments, in exhortation and in pastoral ca=
re.
And for real influence on public life, for her real enchurchment, according=
to
Metropolitan Philaret’s thought, the interference of the hierarchy in
secular affairs is quite unnecessary – ‘it is necessary not so =
much
that a bishop should sit in the governmental assembly of grandees, as that =
the
grandees and men of nobles birth should more frequently and ardently surrou=
nd
the altar of the Lord together with the bishop’… Metropolitan
Philaret always with great definiteness drew a firm line between the state =
and
ecclesiastical orders. Of course, he did not demand and did not desire the
separation of the State from the Church, its departure from the Church into=
the
arbitrariness of secular vanity. But at the same time he always sharply
underlined the complete heterogeneity and particularity of the State and the
Church. The Church cannot be in the State, and the State cannot be in the
Church – ‘unity and harmony’ must be realized between the=
m in
the unity of the creative realization of God’s commandments.
“It is not
difficult to understand how distant and foreign this way of thinking was for
the State functionaries of the Nicolaitan spirit and time, and how demanding
and childish it seemed to them. Philaret did not believe in the power of
rebukes and reprimands. He did not attach great significance to the external
forms of life – ‘it is not some kind of transformation that is
needed, but a choice of men and supervision’, he used to say. And abo=
ve
all what was necessary was an inner creative uplift, a gathering and renewa=
l of
spiritual forces. What was needed was an intensification of creative activi=
ty,
a strengthening and intensification of ecclesiastical and pastoral freedom.=
As
a counterweight to the onslaught of the State, Metropolitan Philaret thought
about the reestablishment of the living unity of the local episcopate, which
would be realized in constant consultative communion of fellow pastors and
bishops, and strengthened at times by small congresses and councils, until a
general local Council would become inwardly possible and achievable.[586]
Metropolitan Philaret always emphasized that ‘we live in the Church
militant’… And with sadness he recognized that ‘the quant=
ity
of sins and carelessnesses which have mounted up in the course of more than=
one
century almost exceeds the strength and means of correction’…
Philaret was not a man of struggle, and was weighed down ‘by remainin=
g in
the chatter and cares of the city and works of men’. He lived in
expectation ‘of that eternally secure city, from which it will not be
necessary to flee into any desert’, He wanted to withdraw, to run awa=
y,
and beyond the storm of affairs to pray for the mercy and longsuffering of =
God,
for ‘defence from on high’.”[587]
The State, wrote
Philaret, is “a union of free moral beings, united amongst themselves
with the sacrifice of part of their freedom for the preservation and
confirmation by the common forces of the law of morality, which constitutes=
the
necessity of their existence. The civil laws are nothing other than
interpretations of this law in application to particular cases and guards
placed against its violation.”[588]
Philaret emphasi=
sed
the rootedness of the State in the family, with the State deriving its
essential properties and structure from the family: “The family is ol=
der
than the State. Man, husband, wife, father, son, mother, daughter and the
obligations and virtues inherent in these names existed before the family g=
rew
into the nation and the State was formed. That is why family life in relati=
on
to State life can be figuratively depicted as the root of the tree. In order
that the tree should bear leaves and flowers and fruit, it is necessary that
the root should be strong and bring pure juice to the tree. In order that S=
tate
life should develop strongly and correctly, flourish with education, and br=
ing
forth the fruit of public prosperity, it is necessary that family life shou=
ld
be strong with the blessed love of the spouses, the sacred authority of the
parents, and the reverence and obedience of the children, and that as a
consequence of this, from the pure elements of family there should arise
similarly pure principles of State life, so that with veneration for
one’s father veneration for the tsar should be born and grow, and that
the love of children for their mother should be a preparation of love for t=
he
fatherland, and the simplehearted obedience of domestics should prepare and
direct the way to self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness in obedience to the
laws and sacred authority of the autocrat…”[589]
The idea that the
State grows out of the family, and must therefore retain the same bonds of =
love
and filial submission that exist in the family, was imbibed by the bearers =
of
the monarchical idea. Thus Tsar Alexander III of Russia told his son, the
future Tsar-Martyr Nicholas: “Strengthen the family, because it is the
basis of every State”.[590] And
the link between family feeling and feeling for the monarchical State is
illustrated by the feelings of Prince Sergius Trubetskoy during his childho=
od
under the same Tsar Alexander: “Father and mother, grandfathers and
grandmothers were for us in childhood not only sources and centres of love =
and
unquestioned authority; they were enveloped in our eyes by a kind of aura w=
hich
the modern generation does not know… Our fathers and grandfathers wer=
e in
our children’s eyes both patriarchs and family monarchs, while our
mothers and grandmothers were family tsaritsas.”[591]
If the foundatio=
n of
the State is the family, and each family is both a miniature State and a
miniature monarchy, it follows that the most natural form of Statehood is
Monarchy – more specifically, a Monarchy that is in union with, as ow=
ing
its origin to, the Heavenly Monarch, God. Despotic monarchies identify
themselves, rather than unite themselves, with the Deity, so they cannot be
said to correspond to the Divine order of things. In ancient times, the only
monarchy that was in accordance with the order and the command of God was t=
he
Israelite autocracy.
As Metropolitan
Philaret demonstrates, this superiority of the Israelite Autocracy makes of=
it
a model for all nations in all times: “It is in the family that we mu=
st
seek the beginnings and first model of authority and submission, which are
later opened out in the large family which is the State. The father is̷=
0;
the first master… but since the authority of the father was not creat=
ed
by the father himself and was not given to him by the son, but came into be=
ing
with man from Him Who created man, it is revealed that the deepest source a=
nd
the highest principle of the first power, and consequently of every later p=
ower
among men, is in God – the Creator of man. From Him ‘every fami=
ly
in heaven and on earth is named’ (Ephesians 3.15). Later, when
sons of sons became a people and peoples, and from the family there grew the
State, which was too vast for the natural authority of a father, God gave t=
his
authority a new artificial image and a new name in the person of the King, =
and
thus by His wisdom kings rule (Proverbs 8.15). In the times of
ignorance, when people had forgotten their Creator… God, together with
His other mysteries, also presented the mystery of the origin of the powers
that be before the eyes of the world, even in a sensory image, in the form =
of
the Hebrew people whom He had chosen for Himself; that is: in the Patriarch
Abraham He miraculously renewed the ability to be a father and gradually
produced from him a tribe, a people and a kingdom; He Himself guided the
patriarchs of this tribe; He Himself raised judges and leaders for this peo=
ple;
He Himself ruled over this kingdom (I Kings 8.7). Finally, He Himself
enthroned kings over them, continuing to work miraculous signs over the kin=
gs,
too. The Highest rules over the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will=
s.
‘The Kingdom is the Lord’s and He Himself is sovereign of the
nations’ (Psalm 21.29). ‘The power of the earth is in the
hand of the Lord, and in due time He will set over it one that is
profitable’ (Sirach 10.4).”
“A non-Rus=
sian
would perhaps ask me now: why do I look on that which was established by God
for one people (the Hebrews) and promised to one King (David) as on a gener=
al
law for Kings and peoples? I would have no difficulty in replying: because =
the
law proceeding from the goodness and wisdom of God is without doubt the per=
fect
law; and why not suggest the perfect law for all? Or are you thinking of
inventing a law which would be more perfect than the law proceeding from the
goodness and wisdom of God?”
“Let us no=
t go
into the sphere of the speculations and controversies in which certain peop=
le
– who trust in their own wisdom more than others – work on the
invention… of better, as they suppose, principles for the transfigura=
tion
of human societies… But so far they have not in any place or time cre=
ated
such a quiet and peaceful life… They can shake ancient States, but th=
ey
cannot create anything firm… They languish under the fatherly and
reasonable authority of the King and introduce the blind and cruel power of=
the
mob and the interminable disputes of those who seek power. They deceive peo=
ple
in affirming that they will lead them to liberty; in actual fact they are
drawing them from lawful freedom to self-will, so as later to subject them =
to
oppression with full right. Rather than their self-made theorising they sho=
uld
study the royal truth from the history of the peoples and kingdoms… w=
hich
was written, not out of human passion, but by the holy prophets of God, tha=
t is
– from the history of the people of God which was from of old chosen =
and
ruled by God. This history shows that the best and most useful for human
societies is done not by people, but by a person, not by many, but by one.
Thus: What government gave the Hebrew people statehood and the law? One man
– Moses. What government dealt with the conquest of the promised land=
and
the distribution of the tribes of the Hebrew people on it? One man –
Joshua the son of Nun. During the time of the Judges one man saved the whole
people from enemies and evils. But since the power was not uninterrupted, b=
ut
was cut off with the death of each judge, with each cutting off of one-man =
rule
the people descended into chaos, piety diminished, and idol-worship and
immorality spread; then there followed woes and enslavement to other people=
s.
And in explanation of these disorders and woes in the people the sacred
chronicler says that ‘in those days there was no king in Israel; every
man did what was pleasing in his own eyes’ (Judges 21.25). Aga=
in
there appeared one man, Samuel, who was fully empowered by the strength of
prayer and the prophetic gift; and the people was protected from enemies, t=
he
disorders ceased, and piety triumphed. Then, to establish uninterrupted one=
-man
rule, God established a King in His people. And such kings as David, Josaph=
at,
Hezekiah and Josiah present images of how successfully an autocratic Majesty
can and must serve for the glorification of the Heavenly King in the earthly
kingdom of men, and together with that – for the strengthening and
preservation of true prosperity in his people… And during the times of
the new grace the All-seeing Providence of God deigned to call the one man =
Constantine,
and in Russia the one man Vladimir, who in apostolic manner enlightened the=
ir
pagan kingdoms with the light of the faith of Christ an thereby established
unshakeable foundations for their might. Blessed is that people and State in
which, in a single, universal, all-moving focus there stands, as the sun in=
the
universe, a King, who freely limits his unlimited autocracy by the will of =
the
Heavenly King, and by the wisdom that comes from God.”[592]
In 1851, Metropo=
litan
Philaret preached as follows: “As heaven is indisputably better than =
the
earth, and the heavenly than the earthly, it is similarly indisputable that=
the
best on earth must be recognised to be that which was built on it in the im=
age
of the heavenly, as was said to the God-seer Moses: ‘Look thou that t=
hou
make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount’ (<=
u>Exodus
25.40). In accordance with this, God established a king on earth in the ima=
ge
of His single rule in the heavens; He arranged for an autocratic king on ea=
rth
in the image of His almighty power; and He placed an hereditary king on ear=
th
in the image of His imperishable Kingdom, which lasts from ages to ages.
“Oh if onl=
y all
the kings of the earth paid sufficient attention to their heavenly dignity =
and
to the traits of the image of the heavenly impressed upon them, and faithfu=
lly
united the righteousness and goodness demanded of them, the heavenly unslee=
ping
watchfulness, purity of thought and holiness of intention that is in
God’s image! Oh if only all the peoples sufficiently understood the
heavenly dignity of the king and the construction of the heavenly kingdom in
the image of the heavenly, and constantly signed themselves with the traits=
of
that same image – by reverence and love for the king, by humble obedi=
ence
to his laws and commands, by mutual agreement and unanimity, and removed fr=
om
themselves everything of which there is no image in the heavens –
arrogance, disputes, self-will, greediness and every evil thought, intention
and act! Everything would be blessed in accordance with the heavenly image =
if
it were well constructed in accordance with the heavenly image. All earthly
kingdoms would be worthy of being the ante-chamber of the Heavenly Kingdom.=
“Russia! Y=
ou
participate in this good more than many kingdoms and peoples. ‘Hold o=
n to
that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown’ (Rev. 3.11).
Keep and continue to adorn your radiant crown, ceaselessly struggling to fu=
lfil
more perfectly the crown-giving commandments: ‘Fear God, honour the
king’ (I Peter 2.17).
“Turning f=
rom
the well-known to that which has perhaps been less examined and understood =
in
the apostle’s word, I direct our attention to that which the apostle,
while teaching the fear of God, reverence for the king and obedience to the
authorities, at the same time teaches about freedom: ‘Submit’, =
he
says, ‘to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake; whether to
the king, as being supreme, or to governors as being sent through him…=
; as
free’. Submit as free men. Submit, and remain free…
“But how a=
re we
more correctly to understand and define freedom? Philosophy teaches that
freedom is the capacity without restrictions rationally to choose and do th=
at
which is best, and that it is by nature the heritage of every man. What, it=
would
seem, could be more desirable? But this teaching has its light on the summi=
t of
the contemplation of human nature, human nature as it should be, while in
descending to our experience and actions as they are in reality, it encount=
ers
darkness and obstacles.
“In the
multiplicity of the race of men, are there many who have such an open and
educated mind as faithfully to see and distinguish that which is best? And =
do
those who see the best always have enough strength decisively to choose it =
and
bring it to the level of action? Have we not heard complaints from the best=
of
men: ‘For to will is present in me, but how to perform that which is =
good
I find not’ (Romans 7.18)? What are we to say about the freedo=
m of
people who, although not in slavery to anybody, are nevertheless subject to
sensuality, overcome by passion, possessed by evil habits? Is the avaricious
man free? Is he not bound in golden chains? Is the indulger of his flesh fr=
ee?
Is he not bound, if not by cruel bonds, then by soft nets? Is the proud and
vainglorious man free? Is he not chained, not by his hands, and not by his
legs, but by his head and heart, is he not chained to his own idol?
“Thus does=
not
experience and consciousness, at least of some people in some cases, speak =
of
that of which the Divine Scriptures speak generally: ‘He who does sin=
is
the servant of sin’ (John 8. 34)?
“Observati=
on of
people and human societies shows that people who to a greater degree allow
themselves to fall into this inner, moral slavery – slavery to sin, t=
he
passions and vices – are more often than others zealots for external
freedom – freedom broadened as far as possible in human society before
the law and the authorities. But will broadening external freedom help them=
to
freedom from inner slavery? There is no reason to think that. With greater
probability we must fear the opposite. He in whom sensuality, passion and v=
ice
has already acquired dominance, when the barriers put by the law and the
authorities to his vicious actions have been removed, will of course give
himself over to the satisfaction of his passions and lusts with even less
restraint than before, and will use his external freedom only in order that=
he
may immerse himself more deeply in inner slavery. Unhappy freedom which, as=
the
Apostle explained, ‘they have as a cover for their envy’! Let us
bless the law and the authorities which, in decreeing and ordering and
defending, as necessity requires, the limits placed upon freedom of action,
hinder as far they can the abuse of natural freedom and the spread of moral
slavery, that is, slavery to sin, the passions and the vices.
“I said: a=
s far
as they can, because we can not only not expect from the law and the earthly
authorities a complete cutting off of the abuse of freedom and the raising =
of
those immersed in the slavery of sin to the true and perfect freedom: even =
the
law of the Heavenly Lawgiver is not sufficient for that. The law warns about
sin, rebukes the sinner and condemns him, but does not communicate to the s=
lave
of sin the power to break the bonds of this slavery, and does not provide t=
he
means of blotting out the iniquities that have been committed, which lie on=
the
conscience like a fiery seal of sinful slavery. And in this consists ‘=
;the
weakness of the law’ (Romans 8.3), to which the Apostle witnes=
ses
without a moment’s hesitation.
“Here the
question again presents itself: what is true freedom, and who can give it, =
and
– especially – return it to the person who has lost it through =
sin?
True freedom is the active capacity of the man who has not been enslaved to=
sin
and who is not weighed down by a condemning conscience, to choose the best =
in
the light of the truth of God and to realize it with the help of the power =
of
God’s grace.
“Giving ba=
ck
this freedom to the slave of sin is possible only for Him Who gave it to
sinless man at his creation. The Creator of freedom Himself declared this:
‘If the Son will set you free, then you will truly be free’ (
“This is
freedom, which is restrained neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by he=
ll,
which has as its limit the will of God, and this not to its own diminution,
because it also strives to fulfil the will of God, which has no need to sha=
ke
the lawful decrees of men because it is able to see in these the truth that
‘the Kingdom is the Lord’s and He Himself is sovereign of the
nations’ (Psalm 21.28), which in an unconstrained way venerates
lawful human authority and its commands that are not contrary to God, insof=
ar
as it radiantly sees the truth that ‘there is no power that is not of
God, the powers that be are ordained of God’ (Romans 13.1). An=
d so
this is freedom, which is in complete accord with obedience to the law and
lawful authority, because it itself wishes for that which obedience demands=
.
“I would h=
ave
much to say about the freedom that is Christian and inner, and not external,
which is moral and spiritual, and not carnal, which always does good and is
never rebellious, which can live in a hut just as comfortably as in a
noble’s house or a royal palace, which a subject, without ceasing to =
be a
subject, can enjoy as much as a master, which is inviolable in bonds and
prison, as we can see in the Christian martyrs. But it is already bring our
sermon to an end.
“Love Chri=
stian
freedom – freedom from sin, from passion, from vice, the freedom of
willing obedience to the law and the authorities, and do good for the sake =
of
the Lord, in accordance with your faith in and love for Him. And let nobody=
be
seduced by the people from whom the Apostolic word warns us, who ‘pro=
mise
freedom, being themselves the slaves of corruption’ (II Peter
2.19). Amen.”[593]
The
Old Ritualists Acquire a Hierarchy
=
;
Metropolitan Phi=
laret
was very disturbed by the Old Believers’ and uniates’ not
commemorating the Emperor during their services. He considered the
commemoration of the Emperor to be an obligatory condition of the reunion of
the uniates with the Orthodox Church.[594]
From 1843 the Old
Ritualists had begun to seek a degree of legality from the State and permis=
sion
to build churches and prayer houses. Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow strong=
ly
resisted these moves. And he reported that in the Preobrazhensky workhouse =
the
Old Ritualists were distributing books that taught “that no marriages
should be recognised; the schismatics in marital unions with people not
belonging to the schism should have their union broken; that bodily
relationship should not be recognized in the Christian marriages; that from
1666… married Christians are a satanic nest of vipers and the most
shameful dwelling-place of his demons; that now satan is thinking about the
multiplication of the human race and a soul is being given from the devil f=
or
the conception of a child.”[595]
In spite of
Philaret’s protests, little was done to restrain the Old Ritualists. =
This
encouraged the Popovtsi to begin to look for a bishop overseas.
No such bishop w=
as
found in the Caucasus, Syria, Palestine, Persia and Egypt.
Finally, writes
Dobroklonsky, they “lured to themselves a former metropolitan of Bosn=
ia,
the Greek Ambrose, who had been deprived of his see and was living in
Constantinople. In 1846 he was brought to Belaia Krinitsa (in Bukovina, in
Austria) and was received into the communion of the Popovtsi by curs=
ing
some supposed heresies and chrismation. In 1847, in accordance with the wis=
h of
the schismatics, he consecrated Bishop Cyril as his deputy and Arcadius for=
the
Nekrasovtsy (in Turkey). Thus was the existence of the Belokrinitsy
hierarchy established. Although in the following year, at the insistence of=
the
Russian government, Ambrose was removed from Belaia Krinitsa to restricted
residence in the city of Tsilla (in Styria) and the Belokrinitsky monastery=
was
sealed, in 1859 the Austrian government again recognised the lawfulness of =
the
Belokrinitskaia metropolia and the monastery was unsealed. Cyril, who succe=
eded
Ambrose, took care to consecrate new bishops, and such soon appeared for the
Turkish, Moldavian and, finally, Russian schismatics. The first of the Russ=
ians
was the shopkeeper Stephen Zhirov, who was made bishop of Simbirsk with the
name Sophronius in 1849; by 1860 there were already up to 10 schismatic
dioceses within the boundaries of Russia. A ‘spiritual council’=
was
formed in Moscow to administer church affairs; it was composed of false bis=
hops
and false priests. Sophronius was dreaming of founding a patriarchate, and =
even
set up a patriarch, but, at the insistence of the schismatics, himself
condemned his own undertaking. At first the government repressed the Old
Believer hierarchs and the priests ordained by them. However, the Austrian
priesthood continue to spread. From the time of Alexander II it began to en=
joy toleration,
although the government did not recognize it as lawful. In spite of a visib=
le
success, the Austrian hierarchy from the very beginning of its existence
displayed signs of disintegration. Quarrels constantly arose between the
schismatic bishops. They became especially fierce after the publication in =
1862
in the name of the spiritual council of a certain ‘encyclical of the =
one,
holy, catholic and apostolic church’. It was composed by an inhabitan=
t of
Starodub, Hilarion Egor. Kabanov with the aim of condemning the reasonings =
of
the Bespopovtsi, whose distribution had dealt a blow to the Austrian
priesthood. Having examined several books of the Bespopovtsi, the
epistle expressed [the following] view of the Orthodox Church: ‘The
ruling church in Russia, as also the Greek, believe in the same God as we (=
the
Old Believers), the Creator of heaven and earth… Therefore, although =
we
pronounce and write the name of the Saviour ‘Isus’, we do not d=
are
to condemn that which is written and pronounced ‘Iisus’ as being
the name of some other Jesus, the opponent of Christ, as certain Bespopo=
vtsi
think to do. Similarly, we do not dishonour and blaspheme the cross with fo=
ur
ends…’ It was also recognised that the true priesthood of Christ
continued in the Orthodox Church (Great Russian and Greek) and would remain
until the day of judgement. While some accepted the epistle, others condemn=
ed
it. Thus there appeared mutually opposing parties of ‘encylicalers=
217;
and ‘anti-encyclicalers’. The latter, who had tendencies toward=
s Bespopovschina,
began to affirm that the name ‘Iisus’, as accepted by the Ortho=
dox
Church, is the name of another person that ‘Isus’, and is the n=
ame
of the Antichrist. Both parties had their own bishops…”[596]
After the creati=
on of
the Belokrinitskaia hierarchy, the attitude of the Russian government towar=
ds
the Old Ritualists became stricter. In 1854 the schismatics were deprived of
all rights as merchants, and their chapel in the Rogozhsky cemetery was clo=
sed.
However, from the
beginning of Alexander II’s reign in 1856, they were allowed to have
services in the Rogozhsky cemetery. In 1865 the government wanted to introd=
uce
a further weakening of the legislation against the Old Ritualists, and only=
the
voice of Metropolitan Philaret stopped it.
=
;
“The strug=
gle of
the holy hierarch with the schism in the last years of his life had, if not=
a
very large, at any rate a definite success. Many of the schismatics joined
either Orthodoxy or the Edinoverie [i.e. the Orthodox Church, but wi=
th
permission to use the Old Ritual]. Thus in 1854 a certain number of schisma=
tics
from the Preobrazhensky cemetery joined the Edinoverie, and in 1865 =
the
following activists of the Belokrinitskaia metropolia joined with the right=
s of
the Edinoverie: among the bishops, the metropolitan’s deputy,
Onuphrius of Braila, Paphnutius of Kolomna, Sergius of Tula and Justin of
Tulchinsk; Hieromonk Joasaph; the archdeacon of Metropolitan Cyril, his
secretary and the keeper of the archives Philaret; Hierodeacon Melchizedek,=
who
was able to take the archive of the metropolia and transfer it across the
Russian frontier.
“The succe=
ss
might have been greater if the government had more actively supported Phila=
ret
and his undertakings in the struggle against the schism…”[597]
The
Russian Church and the Anglicans
It was in the re=
ign of
Tsar Nicholas I that the beginning of what may be called “ecumenical
relations” with the western confessions can be discerned.
The pioneer in t=
his on
the Orthodox side was A.S. Khomiakov, whose correspondence with the Anglican
William Palmer may be considered not only the earliest, but also the best,
exemplar of how to conduct ecumenical relations without betraying the truth=
. He
was very well informed about the religious situation in both East and West,
clearly longed for union, and was not seeking merely to “score
points” over an adversary. He was generous in what was good in the We=
st,
and not afraid to admit weaknesses in the East. But he was politely but
unbendingly firm in his defence of the Orthodox position on questions of fa=
ith
(e.g. the Filioque) and ecclesiology (where the True Church is and w=
here
it is not).
In spite of his =
ardent
desire for union, Khomiakov was pessimistic about its prospects; and this n=
ot
so much because of the doctrinal obstacles, as of the moral obstacle=
s.
As he explained to Palmer: “A very weak conviction in points of doctr=
ine
can bring over a Latin to Protestantism, or a Protestant to the Latins. A
Frenchman, a German, an Englishman, will go over to Presbyterianism, to
Lutheranism, to the Independents, to the Cameronians, and indeed to almost
every form of belief or misbelief; he will not go over to Orthodoxy. As lon=
g as
he does not step out of the circles of doctrines which have taken their ori=
gin
in the Western world, he feels himself at home; notwithstanding his apparent
change, he does not feel that dread of apostasy which renders sometimes the
passage from error to faith as difficult as from truth to error. He will be
condemned by his former brethren, who will call his action a rash one, perh=
aps
a bad one; but it will not be utter madness, depriving him, as it were, of =
his
rights of citizenship in the civilized world of the West. And that is natur=
al.
All the Western doctrine is born out of the Latins; it feels (though
unconsciously) its solidarity with the past; it feels its dependence from o=
ne
science, from one creed, from one line of life; and that creed, that scienc=
e,
that life was the Latin one. This is what I hinted at, and what you underst=
and
very rightly, viz., that all Protestants are Crypto-Papists; and,
indeed, it would be a very easy task to show that in their theology (as wel=
l as
philosophy) all the definitions of all the objects of creed or understanding
are merely taken out of the old Latin System, though often made negative in=
the
application. In short, if it was to be expressed in the concise language of
algebra, all the West knows but one datum, a; whether it be preceded=
by
the positive sign +, as with the Latins, or with the negative -, as with the
protestants, the a remains the same. Now, a passage to Orthodoxy see=
ms
indeed like an apostasy from the past, from its science, creed, and life. I=
t is
rushing into a new and unknown world, a bold step to take, or even to advis=
e.
“This, mos=
t reverend
sir, is the moral obstacle I have been speaking about; this, the pride and
disdain which I attribute to all the Western communities. As you see, it is=
no
individual feeling voluntarily bred or consciously held in the heart; it is=
no
vice of the mind, but an involuntary submission to the tendencies and direc=
tion
of the past. When the unity of the Church was lawlessly and unlovingly rent=
by
the Western clergy, the more so inasmuch as at the same time the East was
continuing its former friendly intercourse, and submitting to the opinion of
the Western Synods the Canons of the Second Council of Nicaea, each half of
Christianity began a life apart, becoming from day to day more estranged fr=
om
the other. There was an evident self-complacent triumph on the side of the
Latins; there was sorrow on the side of the East, which had seen the dear t=
ies
of Christian brotherhood torn asunder – which had been spurned and
rejected, and felt itself innocent. All these feelings have been transmitte=
d by
hereditary succession to our time, and, more or less, either willingly or
unwillingly, we are still under their power. Our time has awakened better
feelings; in England, perhaps, more than anywhere else, you are seeking for=
the
past brotherhood, for the past sympathy and communion. It would be a shame =
for
us not to answer your proferred friendship, it would be a crime not to
cultivate in our hearts an intense desire to renovate the Unity of the Chur=
ch;
but let us consider the question coolly, even when our sympathies are most =
awakened.
“The Church
cannot be a harmony of discords; it cannot be a numerical sum of Orthodox,
Latins, and Protestants. It is nothing if it is not perfect inward harmony =
of
creed and outward harmony of expression (notwithstanding local differences =
in
the rite). The question is, not whether the Latins and protestants have err=
ed
so fatally as to deprive individuals of salvation, which seems to be often =
the
subject of debate – surely a narrow and unworthy one, inasmuch as it
throws suspicion on the mercy of the Almighty. The question is whether they
have the Truth, and whether they have retained the ecclesiastical tradition
unimpaired. If they have not, where is the possibility of unity?…
“Do not, I=
pray,
nourish the hope of finding Christian Truth without stepping out of the for=
mer
protestant circle. It is an illogical hope; it is a remnant of that pride w=
hich
thought itself able and wished to judge and decide by itself without the
Spiritual Communion of heavenly grace and Christian love. Were you to find =
all
the truth, you would have found nothing; for we alone can give you that wit=
hout
which all would be vain – the assurance of Truth.”[598]
In 1864, four ye=
ars
after Khomiakov’s death, Pastor Jung, a delegate of the New York
convocation of the Episcopalian Church with authority from some of the bish=
ops
there to enter into relations with the older Russian hierarchs, came to Rus=
sia.
In a meeting with Metropolitan Philaret and other bishops, he explained the
significance of the 39 articles for the Anglicans and Episcopalians. The
metropolitan said that a rapprochement between the Russian and American
Episcopalian Churches might create problems with their respective “mo=
ther
churches” in England and Greece.
Thus the Greeks =
were
less accommodating with regard to the canonicity of baptism by pouring than
their Russian co-religionists. The metropolitan probably had in mind here t=
he
experience of William Palmer, who, being a member of the “Oxford
movement” and its “branch theory” of the Church (i.e. that
the True Church consists of three branches: the Orthodox, the Catholic and =
the
Anglican), had been shocked to find that the Greeks would receive him into
communion by baptism, and the Russians by chrismation only. In spite of
Khomiakov’s attempts to explain the Orthodox use of condescension or
“economy”, Palmer remained dissatisfied by what he saw as a
difference in ecclesiology between the Greeks and the Russians, and eventua=
lly
joined the Roman Catholic Church.
In another meeti=
ng
with Pastor Jung, Metropolitan Philaret posed five questions relating to th=
e 39
articles:
1. How can the 39 articles n=
ot being
a stumbling-block to the union of the Churches?
2. How can the teaching of t=
he
American Episcopalian Church’s teaching on the procession of the Holy
Spirit [the Filioque] being made to agree with the teaching of the
Eastern Church?
3. Is the uninterruptedness =
of
apostolic hierarchical ordination fully proven in the American Church?
4. Does the American Church
recognize reliable Church Tradition to be a subsidiary guiding principle for
the explanation of Holy Scripture and for Church orders and discipline?
5. What is the view of the A=
merican
Church on the sevenfold number of sacraments in the Eastern Church?
At another meeti=
ng the
pastor gave preliminary replies to the questions, and insisted that the 39
articles had a political rather than a spiritual meaning, and did not have a
fully dogmatic force.
Although the two=
sides
parted on friendly terms, nothing positive came from the meeting. The publi=
c in
America were not ready for this, and there even began something in the natu=
re
of a reaction.
Learning about t=
his,
Philaret sadly remarked: “The reconcilers of the churches… are
weaving a cover for division, but are not effecting union.” “How
desirable is the union of the Churches! But how difficult to ensure that the
movement towards it should soar with a pure striving for the Truth and shou=
ld
be entirely free from attachment to entrenched opinions.” “O Lo=
rd,
send a true spirit of union and peace.”[599]
The
Autocephalous Church of Greece
Until King Otto =
came
of age, three regents were appointed by the Great Powers to rule Greece in =
his
name: Colonel Heideck, a Philhellene and the only choice of the Tsar but a
liberal Protestant, Count Joseph von Armansperg, a Catholic but also a
Freemason, and George von Maurer, another liberal Protestant. Pressed by the
British and French envoys, von Armansperg and von Maurer worked to make Gre=
ece
as independent of Russia and the patriarchate in Constantinople as possible.
Russian demands that the king (or at any rate his children) become Orthodox,
and that the link with the patriarchate be preserved, were ignored…
It was Maurer wh=
o was
entrusted with working out a new constitution for the Church. He “fou=
nd
an illustrious collaborator, in the person of a Greek priest, Theocletus
Pharmacides. This Pharmacides had received his education in Europe and his
thought was exceedingly Protestant in nature; he was the obstinate enemy of=
the
Ecumenical Patriarch and of Russia.”[600] He=
lped
by Pharmacides, Mauer proceeded to work out a constitution that proposed
autocephaly for the Church under a Synod of bishops, and the subordination =
of
the Synod to the State on the model of the Bavarian and Russian constitutio=
ns,
to the extent that "no decision of the Synod could be published or car=
ried
into execution without the permission of the government having been
obtained".
As Frazee commen=
ts:
“If ever a church was legally stripped of authority and reduced to
complete dependence on the state, Maurer’s constitution did it to the
church of Greece.”[601]
In spite of the protests of the patriarch of Constantinople and the tsar of Russia, and the walk-out of the archbishops of Rethymnon and Adrianople, this constitution = was ratified by the signatures of thirty-six bishops on July 26, 1833. The conservative opponent of Pharmacides in the government was Protopresbyter Constantine Oikonomos ex-Oikonomon. He said that “from an ecclesiasti= cal point of view invalid and non-existent and deposed by the holy Canons. For = this reason, during the seventeen years of its existence it was unacceptable to = all the Churches of the Orthodox, and no Synod was in communion with it.”= [602]
The Greek Church therefore exchanged the admittedly uncanonical position of the patriarchate= of Constantinople under Turkish rule for the even less canonical position of a Synod unauthorized by the patriarch and under the control of a Catholic king and a Protestant constitution! In addition to this, all monasteries with fe= wer than six monks were dissolved (425 out of 500), and heavy taxes imposed on = the remaining monasteries. And very little money was given to a Church which had lost six to seven thousand clergy in the war, and whose remaining clergy ha= d an abysmally low standard of education.
Among the wester=
nising
reforms envisaged at this time was the introduction of the new, Gregorian
calendar. Thus Cosmas Flammiatos wrote: “First of all they were tryin=
g in
many ways to introduce into the Orthodox States the so-called new calendar =
of
the West, according to which they will jump ahead 12 days [now 13], so that
when we have the first of the month they will be counting 13 [now 14]. Thro=
ugh
this innovation they hope to confuse and overthrow the feastdays and introd=
uce
other innovations.”[603]
Cosmas also prophesied: “The purpose of this seminary in Halki of Constantinople which has recently been established with cunning effort, is, among other things, to taint all the future Patriarchs and, in general, all the hierarc= hy of the East in accordance with the spirit of corruption and error, through = the proselytism of the English, so that one day, by a resolution of an ‘ecumenical council’ the abolition of Orthodoxy and the introduction of the Luthero-Calvinist heresy may be decreed; at the same ti= me all the other schools train thousands and myriads of likeminded individuals= and confederates among the clergy, the teachers and lay people from among the Orthodox youth.”
For his defence =
of
Orthodoxy, Cosmas was imprisoned together with 150 monks of the Mega Spilai=
on
monastery. The monks were released, but Cosmas died in prison through
poisoning.[604]
Leontiev
on Two Kinds of Nationalism
Such bad fruits =
of the
Greek revolution made observers wonder whether it had been such a good thin=
g.
Among these was the doctor, diplomat and ardent Philhellene Constantine
Nikolayevich Leontiev. Writing in the 1880s, when the Greek revolution had
gained another victory in the liberation of Crete, he said: “The move=
ment
of contemporary political nationalism is nothing other than the spread of
cosmopolitan democratisation with the difference only in the methods…=
“There has=
been
no creativity; the new Hellenes have not been able to think up anything in =
the
sphere of higher interests except a reverent imitation of progressive-de=
mocratic
Europe. As soon as the privileged Turks, who represented something like=
a
foreign aristocracy among the Greeks, had removed themselves, nothing was
found except the most complete plutocratic and grammatocratic
egalitarianism. When a people does not have its own privileged, =
more
or less immobile classes, the richest and most educated of the citizens mus=
t,
of course, gain the superiority over the others. Therefore in an
egalitarian-liberal order a very mobile plutocracy and grammatocracy having=
no
traditions or heritage inevitably develop. At that time [182-32] the new Gr=
eece
could not produce a king of their own blood, to such a degree did her leade=
rs,
the heroes of national liberty, suffer from demagogic jealous=
y!
It, this new Greece, could not even produce a president of her native
Greek blood, Count Kapodistrias, without soon killing him.”
According to Leo=
ntiev,
the Greek revolution represented a new kind of nationalism in the Orthodox
countries, a nationalism influenced by the ideas of the French revolution t=
hat
did not, as with the Greeks in the earlier centuries of the Turkish yoke or=
the
Russians under the Tatar yoke, seek to strengthen national feeling for t=
he
sake of the faith, but which used religious feeling for the sake of =
the
nation. This was the reason why, in spite of the fact that the clergy
played such a prominent role in the Greek revolution, their influence fell
sharply after the revolution in those areas liberated from the Turks=
. “The
Greek clergy complains that in Athens religion is in decline (that is, t=
he
main factor insulating [the Greeks] from the West has weakened), and ma=
kes
itself felt much more in Constantinople than in Athens, and in general more
under the Turks than in pure Hellas.”[605]
“The relig=
ious
idea (Orthodoxy) was taken by the Greek movement only as an aid. The=
re
were no systematic persecutions of Orthodoxy itself in Turkey; but t=
here
did exist very powerful and crude civil offences and restrictions for pe=
ople
not of the Muslim confession. It is understandable that in such a situa=
tion
it was easy not to separate faith from race. It was even natu=
ral
to expect that the freedom of the race would draw in after it the
exaltation of the Church and the strengthening of the clergy thr=
ough
the growth of faith in the flock; for powerful faith in the flock al=
ways
has as its consequence love for the clergy, even if it is very
inadequate. With a strong faith (of whatever kind it may be, whether
unsophisticated and simple in heart or conscious and highly developed ̵=
1;
it doesn’t matter) mystical feeling both precedes moral feeling and, =
so
to speak, crowns it. It, this mystical feeling, is considered the
most important, and for that reason a flock with living faith is always
more condescending also to the vices of its clergy than a flock that is
indifferent. A strongly believing flock is always ready with joy to increase
the rights, privileges and power of the clergy and willingly submits to it =
even
in not purely ecclesiastical affairs.
“In those =
times,
when the peoples being freed from a foreign yoke were led by leaders who had
not experienced the ’winds’ of the eighteenth century, the
emancipation of nations did not bring with it a weakening of the influence =
of
the clergy and religion itself, but even had the opposite effect: it
strengthened both the one and the other. In Russian history, for example, we
see that from the time of Demetrius Donskoj and until Peter I the significa=
nce,
even the political significance of the clergy was constantly growing, and
Orthodoxy itself was becoming stronger and stronger, was spreading, and
entering more and more deeply tinto the flesh and blood of the Russian nati=
on.
The liberation of the Russian nation from the Tatar yoke did not bring with=
it
either the withdrawal of the clergy from the political sphere or a lessenin=
g of
its weight and influence or religious indifference in the higher classes or
cosmopolitanism in morals and customs. The demands of Russian national
emancipation in the time of St. Sergius of Radonezh and Prince Ivan Vasilie=
vich
III were combined in the souls of the people’s leaders not with th=
ose
ideals and ideas with which national patriotism has been yoked in the
nineteenth century in the minds of contemporary leaders. Then what seem=
ed
important were the rights of the faith, the rights of religion, the rights =
of
God; the rights of that which Vladimir Soloviev so successfully called G=
od’s
power.
“In the nineteenth =
century
what was thought to be important first of all were the rights of man,
the rights of the popular mob, the rights of the people’s
power. That is the
difference.”
Leontiev goes on=
to
describe a similar change in pre-1789 and post-1789 nationalism in Western
Europe, in the histories of France, Britain and Spain. And he concludes:
“Now (after the proclamation of ‘the rights of man’=
;)
every union, every expulsion, every purification of the race from outside
admixtures gives only cosmopolitan results [by which he means
‘democratisation within and assimilation (with other countries)
without’].
“Then, =
when
nationalism had in mind not so much itself as the interests of relig=
ion,
the aristocracy, the monarch, etc., then it involuntary produced itself<=
/i>.
And whole nations and separate people at that time became more varied, more
original and more powerful.
“Now, when
nationalism seeks to liberate and form itself, to group people not in
the name of the various, but interrelated interests of religion, the monarc=
hy
and privileged classes, but in the name of the unity and freedom of the =
race
itself, the result turns out everywhere to be more or less uniformly
democratic. All nations and all people are becoming more and more simil=
ar
and as a consequence more and more spiritually poor.
“In our ti=
me political,
state nationalism is becoming the destroyer of cultural, life-style =
nationalism.”[606]
The
Kollyvades Movement
At the same time=
, and
in spite of all the above, there were signs of a spiritual revival in some
parts of the Greek Church… During
the Greek War of Independence there had come to a head a long-running dispu=
te
over the canonicity of two liturgical practices: (1) the performing of serv=
ices
commemorating the dead on Sundays, and (2) the practice of receiving Divine
Communion no more than two or three times a year. The so-called
“Kollyvades” Fathers[607]
– so called after the kollyva, or boiled wheat, which is
traditionally given out at memorial services in the Greek Church – ro=
se
up against these practices, saying that memorial services for the dead shou=
ld
be held, according to Apostolic Tradition, on Saturdays, not Sundays, and t=
hat
Communion should be received as often as possible consistent with proper
preparation for the sacrament. There was much opposition to the teaching of=
the
Kollyvades, and successive patriarchs adopted a compromise position based on
the principle of “economy” or condescension. Thus in 1772 Patri=
arch
Theodosius II decreed in a letter: “Those who perform memorial servic=
es
for the dead of Saturday do well, as they keep the ancient Tradition of the
Church, while those who perform them on Sunday do not sin.” Again, in
1819 Patriarch Gregory V decreed that memorial services “be performed
without distinction on Sundays and Saturdays, as well as on other days of t=
he
week, in order to terminate completely that dispute which arose long
ago.” [608]
As for the recei=
ving
of Communion, “in 1775, Ecumenical Patriarch Theodosios sought to
reconcile the two factions. He wrote to the monks of Athos saying that the
early Christians received Holy Communion every Sunday, while those of the
subsequent period received it every forty days, after penance; he advised t=
hat
whoever felt himself prepared should follow the former, whereas if he did n=
ot
he should follow the latter. But this did not bring an end to the dispute. =
Like
the contention about memorial services, it continued until the early part of
the nineteenth century. In 1819, Patriarch Gregory V wrote to the Athonite
monks that Communion should not be received at certain set times, but whene=
ver
one felt oneself read for it, following confession and other necessary
preparation.”[609]
Constantine Cava=
rnos
points out that the Kollyvades controversy witnesses to the revival of Greek
Orthodox spirituality in the period – at the same time as, and in spi=
te
of, the westernising tendencies noted above. And he continues: “There=
is
another very important side to the Kollyvades movement: its revival of East=
ern
Orthodox mysticism. Together with the Kollyvades’ fervor for a strict=
er
adherence to Sacred Tradition went an endeavour to revive and cultivate this
mysticism, known as hesychasm.
Even the opposit=
ion
aroused by the Kollyvades, especially on Mount Athos, was turned to the goo=
d by
Divine Providence. “Contrary to all the anticipations of the
Anti-Kollyvades, this persecution served to spread the ideas of the Kollyva=
des
throughout Greece. Many of the Kollyvades left Mount Athos and scattered all
over Greece, especially the Aegean islands, becoming spiritual awakeners an=
d reformers
through their sermons, personal counsels, the establishment of monasteries =
that
developed into luminous centers of spiritual life, and their exemplary
Christian character and way of life.”[611]
Gradually Divine=
grace
worked to strengthen the Orthodox Church in Greece, in spite of its uncanon=
ical
position, as it had in Russia. Thus in 1839 the Synod forbade marriages bet=
ween
Orthodox and heterodox; and gradually, within the Synod and outside, support
for reunion with the patriarchate grew stronger. Then, in 1843, a bloodless
coup forced the king to dismiss his Bavarian aides and summon a National
Assembly to draw up a constitution in which the indissoluble unity of the G=
reek
Church with Constantinople was declared. [612]
In 1849 the Greek
government sent the Patriarch the Order of St. Saviour; but he was still not
mollified. However, under Russian pressure, he and his Synod finally, on Ju=
ne
29, 1851, issued a Tomos which recognized the autocephaly of t=
he
Greek Church, but with conditions: that the State should not interfere in t=
he
affairs of the Church (as if it never interfered in the affairs of the
Patriarchate!), that the name of the Patriarch should be commemorated at ev=
ery
Liturgy in Greece, that the Holy Chrism should be sent from Constantinople,=
and
that the Greek Holy Synod should submit all important questions to the
Patriarch. After vigorous debate for a year, a compromise (the so-called
“Law 201”) was worked out, the anathema on the Greek Church was
lifted, and full communion restored…[613]
Russian Hegelianism
The most importa=
nt
influence on young intellectuals in Russia in the 1820s was German idealism=
in
general and the philosophy of Hegel in particular. Many went to Germany and
listened to the lectures of Hegel himself, and of other important German
philosophers such as Schelling.
“In Russia=
, as
elsewhere,” writes Richard Pipes, “the principal consequence of
Idealism was greatly to enhance the creative role of the human mind.
Kant’s critique of empirical theories had this inadvertent result tha=
t it
transformed the mind from a mere recipient of sensory impressions into an
active participant in the process of cognition. The manner in which
intelligence, through its inbuilt categories, perceived reality was in itse=
lf
an essential attribute of that reality. With this argument, the Idealist sc=
hool
which sprung up to overshadow Empiricism, gave a weapon to all those intere=
sted
in promoting the human mind as the supreme creative force – that is, =
in
the first place, the intellectuals. It was now possible to argue that ideas
were every bit as ‘real’ as physical facts, if not more so.
‘Thought’ broadly defined to include feelings, sensations, and,
above all, creative artistic impulses was raised to a status of equality wi=
th
‘Nature’. Everything fitted together; nothing was accidental:
intelligence merely had to graps how phenomena related to ideas. ‘I o=
we
to Schelling the habit I now have of generalizing the least events and the =
most
insignificant phenomena which I encounter’, wrote V.F. Odoevskii, a
leading Schellingian of the 1820s. In the late 1830s when Russian intellect=
uals
became drunk on Hegel, the addiction acquired extreme forms. Alexander Herz=
en,
having returned from exile, found his Moscow friends in a kind of collective
delirium:
=
;
“’No=
body
at this time would have disowned such as sentence as this: “The
cconcrescence of abstract ideas in the sphere of the plastic represents that
pahse of the self-questing spirit in which it, defining itself for itself, =
is
potentialized from natural immanence into the harmonious sphere of the form=
al
consciousness in beauty’… Everything that in fact is most
immediate, all the simplest feelings were erected into abstract categories =
and
returned from thence as pale, algebraic ghosts, without a drop of living
blood… A man who went for a walk… went not just for a walk, but=
in
order to give himself over to the pantheistic feelings of his identification
with the cosmos. If, on the way, he met a tipsy soldier or a peasant woman =
who
tried to strike up a conversation, the philosopher did not simply talk with
them, he determined the substantiality of the popular element, both in its
immediate and its accidental manifestations. The very tear which might aris=
e to
his eye was strictly referred to its proper category: to Gemüth=
or
the “tragic element in the heart”.’
“Secondly,=
and
only slightly less importantly, Idealism injuected into philosophy a dynamic
element. It conceived reality, both in its spiritual and physical aspects, =
as
undergoing constant evolution, as ‘becoming’ rather than
‘being’. The entire cosmos was evolving, the process leading
towards a vaguely defined goal of a perfectly free and rational existence. =
This
‘historicist’ element, present in all Idealist doctrines, has
become ever since an indispensable ingredient of all ‘ideologies̵=
7;.
It gave and continues to give the intelligentsia the assurance that the rea=
lity
with which they happen to be surrounded and in varying degrees repudiate is=
by
the very nature of things transitory, a stepping stone to something superio=
r.
Furthermore, it allows them to argue that whatever discrepancy there might
exist between their ideas and reality is due to the fact that reality, as it
were, has not yet caught up with their ideas. Failure is always temporary f=
or ideologues,
as success is always seen by them to be illusory for the powers that be.
“The net e=
ffect
of Idealism was to inspire Russian intellectuals with a self-confidence whi=
ch
they had never possessed before. Mind was linked with nature, both particip=
ating
in a relentless unfolding of historical processes; compared to this vision,
what were mere governments, economies, armies and bureaucracies? Prince
Odoevskii thus describes the exaltation he and his friends experienced on b=
eing
first exposed to these heady concepts:
“’Wh=
at
solemn, luminous, and joyful feeling permeated life once it had been shown =
that
it was possible to explain the phenomena of nature by the very same laws to
which the human spirit is subject in its evolution, seemingly to close fore=
ver
the gap separating the two realms, and fashion them into a single receptacle
containing the eternal idea and eternal reason. With what youthful and noble
pride did we at that time envisage the share which had been allotted to man=
in
this universal existence! By virtue of the quality and right of thought, man
transposed visible nature within himself and analysed it in the innermost
recesses of his own consciousness: in short, he became nature’s focal
point, judge and interpreter. He absorbed nature and in him it revived for
rational and inspired existence… The more radiantly the eternal spiri=
t,
the eternal idea reflected themselves in man, the more fully did he underst=
and
their present in all the other realms of life. The culmination of the whole=
[Idealist]
outlook were moral obligations, and one of the most indispensable obligatio=
ns
was to emancipate within oneself the divine share of the world idea from
everything accidental, impure, and false in order to acquire the right to t=
he
blessings of a genuine, rational existence.’
“Of course=
, not
all Russian intellectuals succumbed to such ecstasy. Idealism had also more
sober followers, as, for example, among academic historians who took from H=
egel
little more than a general scheme of development of human societies. But in
some degree, in the reign of Nicholas I (1825-55) Idealism was an all-perva=
ding
philosophy of the Russian intelligentsia, and its influence persisted well =
into
the second half of the nineteenth century, after its principal tenets had b=
een
repudiate and replaced by materialism…”[614]
Russian thought =
was
rescued from this pantheistic ecstasy by concentrating on the historicist
aspect of Idealism, and on Hegel’s concept of “the historical n=
ation”.
It stimulated Russian thinkers to take a more historical and dialectical
approach to the study of their own land and its present situation.[615] Al=
so
important here was the influence of Herder, and his concept of the unique
essence of every nation.
=
; “What was the
relationship between the old, pre-Petrine Russia and the new, post-Petrine
Russia?” they asked. “Could these antithetical Russias be
reconciled in a new synthesis of the future?” “Is it necessary
decisively to choose the one and reject the other?”
More particularl=
y, it
was Hegel’s failure “to find room for the Slavs”, as G.
Vernadsky put it, in his historical schema that provoked and intrigued the
Russian intellectuals. He wrote: “[The Slavs] did indeed found kingdo=
ms
and sustain vigorous conflicts with the various nations that came across th=
eir
path. Sometimes, as an advance guard – an intermediate nationality
– they took part in the struggle between Christian Europe and unchris=
tian
Asia. The Poles even liberated beleagured Vienna from the Turks; and Slavs =
have
to some extent been drawn within the sphere of Occidental Reason. Yet this
entire body of peoples remains excluded from our consideration because hith=
erto
it has not appeared as an independent element in the series of phases that
reason has assumed in the world.”[616]
Was Russia no mo=
re
than “an intermediate nationality”?, asked the Russian
intellectuals. Had History really passed the Slavs by? Were they just a
footnote to “the sphere of Occidental Reason”? Or did they have=
something
original to contribute? In the next stage of the historical dialectic perha=
ps?
After all, if Hegel thought that the Romano-French period of history had be=
en
overtaken by the German, why should not the German in its turn be overtaken=
by
the Slav?[617]
Other elements in
Hegelianism that proved attractive to Russian thinkers were the concept of
alienation (for they themselves felt alienated from their country and both =
its
leadership and the common people) and the concept of reconciliation with re=
ality
(for they were Russian after all, and wanted, if at all possible, to be
reconciled with that reality). Less attractive to them was its determinism;=
and
characteristic of almost all these thinkers was their emphasis on the
importance of the individual and individual freedom. Those who inherited the
determinism of Hegelianism later took the more radical road of atheism and
Marxism.
These questions =
and
preoccupations led to the emergence of two schools of thought on the nature=
and
destiny of Russia: the westerners, who basically thought that the westerniz=
ing
path chosen by Peter had been correct, and the Slavophiles, who believed in
Orthodoxy, in the pre-Petrine symphony of powers, and in a special, distinct
path chosen by God for Russia. Almost the whole of the public intellectual =
life
of Russia until the revolution could be described as increasingly complex
variations on these two viewpoints and the various intermediate positions:
Chaadaev and Pushkin, Belinsky and Gogol, Herzen and Khomiakov, Tolstoy and
Dostoyevsky, Soloviev and Pobedonostev, Lenin and Tikhomorov. The result was
paradoxical: an increasing westernization of the noble educated classes, who
had suffered most from Peter’s revolution, and an increasing
“Slavophilisation” of the tsars themselves, culminating in the =
most
Orthodox and Slavophile of all the tsars, Nicholas II.
The great debate=
began
in 1836 with the publication, by the nobleman Peter Yakovlevich Chaadaev, a
convert to Catholicism, of the first of his Philosophical Letters. T=
here
were eight of these, the first of which was dated 1829 and the last - 1831.
N.O. Lossky writes: “The letters are ostensibly addressed to a lady w=
ho
is supposed to have asked Chaadaev’s advice on the ordering of her
spiritual life. In the first letter Chaadaev advises the lady to observe the
ordinances of the Church as a spiritual exercise in obedience. Strict
observance of church customs and regulations may only be dispensed with, he
says[618], w=
hen
‘beliefs of a higher order have been attained, raising our spirit to =
the
source of all certainty;’ such beliefs must not be in contradiction to
the ‘beliefs of the people’. Chaadaev recommends a well-regulat=
ed
life as favorable to spiritual development and praises Western Europe where=
‘the
ideas of duty, justice, law, order’ are part of the people’s fl=
esh
and blood and are, as he puts it, not the psychology, but the physiology of=
the
West. He evidently has in mind the disciplinary influence of the Roman Cath=
olic
Church. As to Russia, Chaadaev is extremely critical of it. Russia, in his
opinion, is neither the West nor the East. ‘Lonely in the world, we h=
ave
given nothing to the world, have taught it nothing; we have not contributed=
one
idea to the mass of human ideas.’ ‘If we had not spread ourselv=
es
from [the] Behring Straits to [the] Oder, we would never have been
noticed.’ We do not, as it were, form part of the human organism and
exist ‘solely in order to give humanity some important
lesson’.”[619]
According to Chaadaev, “not a single useful thought has sprouted in o=
ur
country’s barren soil; not a single great truth has emerged from our
ambit…. Something in our blood repulses all true progress. In the end=
we
have lived and now live solely to serve as some inscrutable great lesson for
the distant generations that will grasp it; today, whatever anyone may say,=
we
are a void in the intellectual firmament.”[620]
Though writing f=
rom a
westerning, anti-Russian viewpoint, Sir Isaiah Berlin sums up the matter we=
ll:
“Chaadaev’s attack, with its deification of Western traditions,
ideas and civilisation, was the key to later Russian ‘social
thought’. Its importance was enormous. It set the tone, it struck the
dominant notes which were echoed by every major Russia writer up to and bey=
ond
the Revolution. Everything is there: the proclamation that the Russian past=
is
blank or filled with chaos, that the only true culture is the Roman West, a=
nd
that the Great Schism robbed Russia of her birthright and left her barbarou=
s,
an abortion of the creative process, a caution to other peoples, a Caliban
among nations. Here, too, is the extraordinary tendency toward
self-preoccupation which characterises Russian writing even more than that =
of
the Germans, from whom this tendency mainly stems. Other writers, in Englan=
d,
France, even Germany, write about life, love, nature and human relations at
large; Russian writing, even when it is most deeply in debt to Goethe or
Schiller or Dickens or Stendhal, is about Russia, the Russian past, the Rus=
sian
present, Russian prospects, the Russian character, Russian vices and Russian
virtues. All the ‘accursed questions’ (as Heine was perhaps the
first to call them) turn in Russian into notorious proklyatye voprosy
– questions about the destinies (sud’by) of Russia: Wher=
e do
we come from? Whither are we bound? Why are we who we are? Should we teach =
the
West or learn from it? Is our ‘broad’ Slav nature higher in the
spiritual scale than that of the ‘Europeans’ – a source of
salvation for all mankind – or merely a form of infantilism and barba=
rism
destined to be superseded or destroyed? The problem of the ‘superfluo=
us
man’ is here already; it is not an accident that Chaadev was an intim=
ate
friend of the creator of Eugene Onegin [Pushkin]. No less characteri=
stic
of this mental condition is Chaadaev’s contrary speculation that was =
also
destined to have a career in subsequent writing, in which he wondered wheth=
er
the Russians, who have arrived so late at the feast of the nations and are
still young, barbarous and untried, do not thereby derive advantages, perha=
ps overwhelming
ones, over older or more civilised societies. Fresh and strong, the Russians
might profit by the inventions and discoveries of the others without having=
to
go through the torments that have attended their mentors’ struggles f=
or
life and civilisation. Might there not be a vast positive gain in being lat=
e in
the field? Herzen and Chernyshevsky, Marxists and anti-Marxists, were to re=
peat
this with mounting optimism. But the most central and far-reaching question=
was
still that posed by Chaadaev. He asked: Who are we and what should be our p=
ath?
Have we unique treasures (as the Slavophils maintained) preserved for us by=
our
Church – the only true Christian one – which Catholics and
Protestants have each in their own way lost or destroyed? Is that which the
West despises as coarse and primitive in fact a source of life – the =
only
pure source in the decaying post-Christian world? Or, on the contrary, is t=
he
West at least partially right: if we are ever to say our own word and play =
our
part and show the world what kind of people we are, must we not learn from =
the
Westerners, acquire their skills, study in their schools, emulate their arts
and sciences, and perhaps the darker sides of their lives also? The lines of
battle in the century that followed remained where Chaadaev drew them: the
weapons were ideas which, whatever their origins, in Russian became matters=
of
the deepest concern – often of life and death – as they never w=
e in
England or France or, to such a degree, in Romantic Germany. Kireevsky, Kho=
miakov
and Aksakov gave one answer, Belinsky and Dobrolyubov another, Kavelin yet a
third.”[621]
This letter, in =
the
words of Count Ficquelmont, “fell like a bomb amidst Russian vanity a=
nd
those principles of religious and political pre-eminence to which the capit=
al
is much inclined”, while Herzen later remarked that it “shook t=
he
whole of intellectual Russia”. The tsar was furious. Klementy Rosset,=
an
officer of the General Staff, wrote to the famous poet Alexander Pushkin:
“The Emperor has read Chaadaev’s article and found it absurd and
extravagant, saying that he was sure ‘that Moscow did not share the
insane opinions of the Author’, and has instructed the governor-gener=
al
Prince Golitsyn to inquire daily as to the health of Chaadaev’s wits =
and
to put him under governmental surveillance…”[622]
This letter, tog=
ether
with the other Philosophical Letters, elicited from Pushkin the firs=
t,
and one of the best statements of the opposing, Slavophile position. Pushkin
had known Chaadaev for a long time. In 1818, when his views were more radic=
al
(and blasphemously atheist) than they came to be at the end of his life, he=
had
dedicated to Chaadaev the following lines:
Upon our sight, a radiant token;
Russia will rise from her long sleep;<= o:p>
And where autocracy lies, broken,
Our names shall yet be graven deep.[623]=
But even here anti-autocratic sentimen=
ts are
combined with a belief in Russia. So although Pushkin admitted to the Tsar =
that
he would have participated in the Decembrist rebellion if he had not been in
exile, he was never a typical westernizer. This fact, combined with his deep
reading in Russian history, the stabilising experience of marriage and, as =
we
have seen, an enlightening interview with the Tsar himself, led Pushkin to a
kind of conversion to Russia and to a belief in her significance as a
phenomenon independent of Europe.
Pushkin’s =
change
of views with regard to the autocracy is demonstrated by the following word=
s:
“Why is it necessary that one of us should become higher than all and
even higher than the law itself? Because the law is a tree, and in the law =
man
hears something cruel and unfraternal. You don’t get far with merely =
the
literal fulfilment of the law: but none of us must break it or not fulfil i=
t:
for this a higher mercy softening the law is necessary. This can appear to =
men
only in a fully-empowered authority. The state without a fully-empowered
monarch is an automaton: many, if attains to what the United States has
attained. But what is the United States? A corpse. In them man has disappeared to the=
point
that he’s not worth a brass farthing. A state without a fully-empower=
ed
monarch is the same as an orchestra without a conducter. However good the
musicians, if there is not one among them who gives the beat with the movem=
ent
of his baton, the concert gets nowhere…”[624]
The sincerity of=
his
conversion was demonstrated during the Polish rebellion in 1830. Although
“enlightened” Europe condemned the Tsar for crushing the rebell=
ion,
on August 2, 1830, just three weeks before the taking of Warsaw by Russian
troops, Pushkin wrote “To the Slanderers of Russia”. From that
time, as the friend of the poet’s brother, Michael Juzefovich, wrote,
“his world-view changed, completely and unalterably. He was already a
deeply believing person: [he now became] a citizen who had changed his mind,
having understood the demands of Russian life and renounced utopian
illusions.”[625]
However, Chaadae=
v had
not undergone this conversion, and was still not convinced that Russia̵=
7;s
past was anything more than “a blank sheet of paper”, “an
unhappy country with neither past, present nor future”.
Valery Lepakhin =
and
Andrei Zavarzin have summarised the debate between Chaadaev and Pushkin as
follows: “Russia and Europe. This problem especially occupied the min=
ds
of Russians at the beginning of the 19th century. Chaadaev
considered the schism (the division of the Churches [in 1054]) as a tragedy=
for
Russia, which separated it from Christianity (of course, from Catholicism, =
and
not from Christianity, but at that time these terms were synonymous for
Chaadaev), from ‘the world idea’, form ‘real progressR=
17;,
from ‘the wonderworking principle’, from ‘the enlightened,
civilised peoples’. In principle Pushkin agreed with Chaadaev, but
specified that ‘the schism disunited us from backward Europe’:
first, it separated ‘us’, that is, not only Russia, but in gene=
ral
the whole of the eastern branch of Christianity, and secondly, it separated
simply from ‘backward Europe’, and not from ‘enlightened =
and
civilised people’, as Chaadaev claimed. In reading the Russian
chronicles, sermons and lives of saints, it is impossible not to notice the
fact that they are full of gratitude to God for the fact the Russ’
accepted baptism from Orthodox Constantinople, and not from Catholic Rome.[626] Th=
is
fact is never viewed as a tragedy in Russian literature and history, rather=
the
opposite: beginning with the description of the holy Prince Vladimir’s
choice of faith, this event became the subject of poetry and chant. And not=
out
of hostility to Catholicism, and from faith in Divine Providence, which jud=
ged
that it should be so and which the consciousness of believers perceived with
gratitude, for Providence cannot err. But Chaadaev, who speaks so much abou=
t Christianity,
sees in this fact ‘the will of fate’ in a pagan manner.
“Pushkin a=
greed
with his friend of many years that ‘we did not take part in any of the
great events which shook her (Europe)’. But it does not occur to Chaa=
daev
to ask the simple question: why should Rus’ have taken part. O=
r,
for example, would not this ‘participation’ have been for the
worse, both for Europe and for Rus’? Pushkin gives a simple, but
principled reply at this point: Russia has ‘her own special calling&#=
8217;,
which Pushkin in another place calls ‘lofty’: ‘It was Rus=
sia
and her vast expanses that were swallowed up by the Mongol invasion. The
Tartars did not dar to cross our western frontiers and leave us in their re=
ar.
They departed for their deserts, and Christian civilisation was saved…=
; By
our martyrdom the energetic development of Catholic Europe was delivered fr=
om
all kinds of hindrances’. From Pushkin’s reply it follows that
indirectly at any rate Russia did take part in the life of Western Europe, =
and,
in accordance with its historical significance, this participation was weig=
hty
and fraught with consequences for the West. It was not a direct participati=
on
insofar as Russia had a different calling. The complete opposition of
Pushkin’s and Chaadaev’s views on the problem is characteristic.
For the latter the Tartar-Mongol yoke was a ‘cruel and humiliating
foreign domination’. For Pushkin this epoch was sanctified by the lof=
ty
word ‘martyrdom’, which Russia received not only for herself, b=
ut
also for her western brothers, for Christian civilization generally. In his
reply Pushkin links the special calling of Russia with her reception of
Orthodoxy, and see in it not ‘the will of fate’, but RussiaR=
17;s
preparation of herself for this martyrdom.
“Chaadaev’s attitude to Byzantium also elicited objectio=
ns
from Pushkin. Chaadaev called Byzantium ‘corrupt’, he affirmed =
that
it was at that time (the 10th century – the reception of
Christianity by Rus’) ‘an object of profound disdain’ for=
the
West European peoples. Now it is difficult even to say what there is more o=
f in
this passage from Chaadaev: simple ignorance of the history of Byzantium and
Europe and complete absorption in his speculative historiosophical concepti=
on,
or the conscious prejudice of a westerniser. The beginning of the 10th=
century in Byzantium was marked by the activity of Leo VI, ‘the
Wise’, the middle – by the reign of Constantine VII
Porphyrogennitus, and the end – by the victories of Basil II the
Bulgar-slayer. It was precisely this period that saw the development of
political theories and the science of jurisprudence, theoretical military
thought and knowledge of the natural sciences. New schools were opened, and=
a
good education was highly prized both in the world and in the Church.
Significant works were produced in the sphere of philosophy, literature and=
the
fine arts, and theology produced such a light as Simeon the New Theologian,=
the
third (after the holy Evangelist John the Theologian and St. Gregory the
Theologian) to be given the title ‘theologian’ by the Orthodox
Church. … This period is considered by scientists to be the epoch of =
the
flourishing of Byzantine aesthetic consciousness, of architecture and music=
. If
one compares the 10th century in Byzantium and in Europe, the
comparison will not be in favour of the latter. Moreover, Chaadaev himself
speaks of the ‘barbarism’ of the peoples that despised Byzantiu=
m.
“’You
say,’ writes Pushkin, ‘that the source from which we drew up
Christianity was impure, that Byzantium was worthy of disdain and was
disdained’, but, even if it was so, one should bear in mind that
‘from the Greeks we took the Gospel and the traditions, and not the
spirit of childish triviality and disputes about words. The morals of Byzan=
tium
never were the morals of Kiev. For Chaadaev it was important ‘from
where’, but for Pushkin ‘how’ and ‘what’ they
took it. After all, ‘was not Jesus Christ Himself born as a Jew and w=
as
not Jerusalem a proverb among the nations?’ Pushkin did not want to e=
nter
into polemics on the subject of Byzantium insofar as that would have dragged
out his letter. Moreover, the problem was a special one not directly connec=
ted
with the polemic surrounding the history of Russia. For him it was evident =
that
Russia, as a young and healthy organism, had filtered through her Byzantine
heritage, assimilated the natural and cast out that which was foreign and
harmful. Above mention was made of the fact that in the chronicles praise w=
as
often offered to God for the reception of Christianity by Rus’ from
Byzantium. But no less often do we find critical remarks about the Greek
metropolitans, and of the Greeks and Byzantium in general. Therefore Pushkin
placed the emphasis on the critical assimilation of the Byzantine heritage.=
For
him, Rus’ received from Byzantium first of all ‘the light of
Christianity’….
“Both Chaa=
daev
and Pushkin highly esteemed the role of Christianity in world history. In h=
is
review of The History of the Russian People by N. Polevoj, the latter
wrote: ‘The greatest spiritual and political turning-point [in the
history of] of our planet is Christianity. In this sacred element the world
disappeared and renewed itself. Ancient history is the history of Egypt,
Persia, Greece, Rome. Modern history is the history of Christianity.’
Chaadaev would also have signed up to these words, but immediately after th=
is
common affirmation differences would have arisen. For Chaadaev true
Christianity rules, shapes and ‘lords over everything’ only in
Catholic Europe – ‘there Christianity accomplished
everything’. Chaadaev even considers the history of Catholic Europe t=
o be
’sacred, like the history of the ancient chosen people’.
“He recogn=
ises
the right of the Russians, as, for example, of the Abyssinians, to call
themselves Christians, but in the Christianity of the former and the latter
that ‘order of things’, which ‘constitutes the final call=
ing
of the human race’ was not realised at all. ‘Don’t you
think,’ says Chaadaev to his correspondent, ‘that these stupid =
departures
from Divine and human truths (read: Orthodoxy) drag heaven down to
earth?’ And so there exist Catholic Europe, the incarnation of
Christianity, and Russia, Abyssinia and certain other historical countries
which have stagnated in ‘stupid departures from Divine and human
truths’. Chaadaev refuses these countries the right to their own path,
even the right to have a future.
“In one of=
his
reviews Pushkin indirectly replies to Chaadaev: ‘Understand,’ he
writes, ‘that Russia never had anything in common with the rest of
Europe; her history demands other thoughts, other formulae, different from =
the
thoughts and formulae extracted by Guizot from the history of the Christian
West’. For Pushkin it is absolutely obvious that any schema of histor=
ical
development will remain a private, speculative schema and will never have a
universal character. Any conception is built on the basis of some definite
historical material, and to transfer it, out of confidence in its universal=
ity,
to other epochs or countries would be a mistake. After all, as often as not=
that
which does not fit into a once-worked-out schema is cut off and declared to
have no significane and not worthy of study or analysis. But Pushkin makes =
his
own generalisations, proceeding from history, from concrete facts. S. Frank
wrote: ‘The greatest Russian poet was also completely original and, we
can boldly say, the greatest Russian political thinker of the 19th
century’. This was also noticed by the poet’s contemporaries.
Vyzamesky wrote: ‘In Pushkin there was a true understanding of
history… The properties of his mind were: clarity, incisiveness,
sobriety… He would not paint pictures according to a common standard =
and
size of already-prepared frames, as is often done by the most recent histor=
ians
in order more conveniently to fit into them the events and people about to =
be
portrayed’. But it was precisely this that was the defect of
Chaadaev’s method. Moreover, the non-correspondence of schema and
historical reality (frame and picture) was sometimes so blatant with him th=
at
he had completely to reject the historical and religious path of Russia for=
the
sake of preserving his schema of world development.
“Pus=
hkin
also did not agree with Chaadaev concerning the unity of Christianity, which
for Chaadaev ‘wholly consisted in the idea of the merging of all the
moral forces of the world’ for the establishment of ‘a social
system or Church which would have to introduce the kingdom of truth among
people’.[627] To
this Pushkin objected already in his letter of 1831: ‘You see the uni=
ty
of Christianity in Catholicism, that is, in the Pope. Does it not consist in
the idea of Christ, which we find also in Protestantism?’ Pushkin not=
es
the Catholico-entrism of Chaadaev, and reminds him of the Protestant part of
the Western Christian world. But the main point is that Pushkin turns out t=
o be
better-prepared theologically than Chaadaev. The Church is the Body of Chri=
st,
and Christ Himself is Her Head, according to the teaching of the Apostle Pa=
ul (Ephesians
1.23, 4.16; Colossians 1.18, etc.). Here Pushkin in a certain sense
anticipates the problems of Dostoyevsky, who considered that Rus’ had
preserved that Christ that the West had lost, and that the division of the
Churches had taken place precisely because of different understandings of
Christ.
“Pushkin c=
onsidered
it necessary to say a few words also about the clergy, although Chaadaev had
not directly criticised them in his first letter. ‘Our clergy,’
writes the poet, ‘were worthy of respect until Theophan [Prokopovich].
They never sullied themselves with the wretchednesses of papism…, and=
, of
course, they would never have elicited a Reformation at a moment when manki=
nd
needed unity more than anything.’ In evaluating the role of the clerg=
y in
Russian history, Pushkin distinguished between two stages: before Peter and
after Peter. The role of the clergy in Russian life before Peter was
exceptionally great. Ancient Rus’ inherited from Byzantium, together =
with
the two-headed eagle on her arms, the idea of the symphony of secular and
ecclesiastical power. This idea was equally foreign both to caesaropapism a=
nd
papocaesarism and the democratic idea of the separation of the Church from =
the
State. Of course, symphony never found its full incarnation in State life, =
but
it is important that as an idea it lived both in the Church and in the Stat=
e,
and the role of the clergy as the necessary subject of this symphony was
naturally lofty and indisputable. But even outside the conception of
‘symphony’, the clergy played an exceptionally important role in
the history of Russia. In the epoch of the Tatar-Mongol yoke they were almo=
st
the only educated class in Russian society: ‘The clergy, spared by the
wonderful quick-wittedness of the Tatars alone in the course of two dark
centuries kept alive the pale sparks of Byzantine education’. In anot=
her
place Pushkin even found it necessary to contrast the Russian and Catholic
clergy – true, without detailed explanations of his affirmation:
‘In Russia the influence of the clergy was so beneficial, and in the
Roman-Catholic lands so harmful… Consequently we are obliged to the m=
onks
of our history also for our enlightenment’.
“A new era=
began
from the time of Theophan Prokopovich (more exactly: Peter I), according to
Pushkin. In a draft of a letter dated 1836 he wrote to Chaadaev: ‘Pet=
er
the Great tamed (another variant: ‘destroyed’) the clergy, havi=
ng
removed the patriarchate’. Peter made the clergy into an institution
obedient to himself and destroyed the age-old idea of symphony. Now they had
begun to be excised from the consciousness both of the clergy and of the si=
mple
people, and of state officials. In losing their role in society, the clergy
were becoming more and more backward, more and more distant from the needs =
and
demands of the life of society. They were being forced to take the role of
‘fulfillers of the cult’.
“In
Pushkin’s opinion, a serious blow against the clergy was later delive=
red
by Catherine II. And if we are to speak of the backwardness of the Russian
clergy, it is there that we must see its source. ‘Catherine clearly
persecuted the clergy, sacrificing it to her unlimited love of power, in the
service of the spirit of the times… The seminaries fell into a state =
of
complete collapse. Many villages did not have priests… What a pity! F=
or
the Greek confession gives us our special national character’. If
Chaadaev reproaches Russia for not having ‘her own face’, then =
for
Pushkin it is evident that Russia has ‘her own face’ and it was
formed by Orthodoxy. Therefore a sad note is heard in Pushkin’s
evaluation of the era of Catherine: she has her own face, her ‘special
national character’, if only she does not lose it because of
ill-thought-out reforms and orders foreign to the spirit of Russian life. In
contrast to Chaadaev, Pushkin linked the backwardness of the contemporary
clergy not with the reception of Christianity from Byzantium, but with the
recent transformations in Russian State and Church life, and sought the roo=
ts
of this backwardness not in the 10th century but in the 18t=
h
century, in the reforms of Peter and in the epoch of the so-called
Enlightenment…”[628]
Such was the deb=
ate in
its main outlines. And yet, just as Pushkin moved towards the Slavophile
position later in life, so, less surely and certainly, did Chaadaev. Thus in
1830 he praised Pushkin’s nationalist poems on the Warsaw insurrectio=
n.
And later, in his Apology of a Madman (1837), he was inclined to thi=
nk
that the very emptiness of Russia’s past might enable her to contribu=
te
to the future.
Indeed, he then
believed that Russia was destined “to resolve the greater part of the
social problems, to perfect the greater part of the ideas which have arisen=
in
older societies, to pronounce judgement on the most serious questions which
trouble the human race”.[629]
Moreover, in the same Apology (1837), he spoke of the Orthodox Churc=
h as
“this church that is so humble and sometimes so heroic”. And in=
a
conversation with Khomiakov in 1843 he declared: “From Holy Byzantium
holy Orthodoxy shines out for us”.=
[630]
However, while
Slavophile tendencies sometimes surfaced in Chaadaev, as in other westerniz=
ers,
his fundamentally westernising radicalism was revealed by his anti-monarchi=
cal
remark on the occasion of the European revolutions in 1848: “We
don’t want any King except the King of heaven”…[631]
Russia and Eur=
ope:
(2) Belinsky vs. Gogol
The figure of Pe=
ter
the Great continued to be a critical point of difference between the
Westernizers and the Slavophiles. The Westernizers admired him (for Chaadae=
v he
was, with Alexander I, almost the only significant Russian): the Slavophiles
criticised him as the corrupter of the true Russian tradition. All felt they
had to interpret his place in Russian history.
Once again it was
Pushkin who began the reappraisal with his famous poem on the statue of Pet=
er, The
Bronze Horseman. However, it was the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky=
who
made the decisive contribution from the westernizers’ side. And anoth=
er
writer, Gogol, who took the Russian case one step further…
Unlike most of t=
he
intellectuals of the time, Belinsky was not a nobleman, but a raznochine=
ts
(that is, of undetermined or “sundry” rank). Moreover, he was an
atheist. In fact, he rejected all the traditional pillars of Russian life. =
He
was one of the first to recognize the greatness of Pushkin. And he was equa=
lly
perceptive of the talent of Nicholas Vasilyevich Gogol and Fyodor Mikhailov=
ich
Dostoyevsky. And yet these writers, “discovered” by Belinsky,
turned decisively against his westernising philosophy…
Belinsky was
concerned, writes Walicki, “above all with the role of Peter the Great
and the antithesis of pre-and post-reform Russia. In his analysis, he made =
use
of a dialectical scheme current among the Russian Hegelians, although he was
the first to apply it to Russian history. Individuals as well as whole nati=
ons,
he argued, pass through three evolutionary stages: the first is the stage of
‘natural immediacy’; the second is that of the abstract
universalism of reason, with its ‘torments of reflection’ and p=
ainful
cleavage between immediacy and consciousness; the third is that of
‘rational reality’, which is founded on the ‘harmonious
reconciliation of the immediate and conscious elements’.
“Belinsky
developed this idea in detail as early as 1841, in his long essay on ‘=
;The
Deeds of Peter the Great’, in which he wrote: ‘There is a
difference between a nation in its natural, immediate and patriarchal state,
and this same nation in the rational movement of its historical
development’. In the earlier stage, he suggested, a nation cannot rea=
lly
properly be called a nation (natsiia), but only a people (narod).
The choice of terms was important to Belinsky: during the reign of Nicholas=
the
word narodnost’, used… by the exponents of Official
Nationality [together with the words ‘Orthodoxy’ and
‘Autocracy’ to express the essence of Russian life], had a
distinctly conservative flavour; natsional’nost’, on the
other hand, thanks to its foreign derivation evoked the French Revolution a=
nd
echoes of bourgeois democratic national developments.
=
;
“Belinsky’s pictu=
re of
pre-Petrine Russia was surprisingly similar to that presented by the
Slavophiles, although his conclusions were quite different from theirs. Bef=
ore
Peter the Russian people (i.e. the nation in the age of immediacy) had been=
a
close-knit community held together by faith and custom – i.e. by the
unreflective approval of tradition idealized by the Slavophiles. These very
qualities, however, allowed no room for the emergence of rational thought or
individuality, and thus prevented dynamic social change.
“Before Ru=
ssians
could be transformed into a nation it was necessary to break up their
stagnating society… Belinsky argued that the emergence of every modern
nation was accompanied by an apparently contradictory phenomenon – na=
mely
the cleavage between the upper and lower strata of society that so disturbed
the Slavophiles. He regarded this as confirmation of certain general rules
applying to the formation of modern nation-states: ‘In the modern
world,’ he wrote, ‘all the elements within society operate in
isolation, each one separately and independently… in order to develop=
all
the more fully and perfectly… and to become fused once more into a new
and homogeneous whole on a higher level than the original undifferentiated
homogeneity’. In his polemics with the Slavophiles, who regarded the
cleavage between the cultivated elite and the common people as the prime ev=
il
of post-Petrine Russia, Belinsky argued that ‘the gulf between society
and the people will disappear in the course of time, with the progress of
civilization’. This meant ‘raising the people to the level of
society’, he was anxious to stress, and not ‘forcing society ba=
ck
to the level of the people’, which was the Slavophiles’ remedy.=
The
Petrine reforms, which had been responsible for this social gulf, were
therefore, in Belinsky’s view, the first and decisive step toward mod=
ern
Russia. ‘Before Peter the Great, Russia was merely a people [narod=
];
she became a nation [natsiia] thanks to the changes initiated by the
reformer.’”[632]
=
;
Berlin writes:
“The central question for all Russians concerned about the condition =
of
their country was social, and perhaps the most decisive single influence on=
the
life and work of Belinsky was his social origin. He was born in poverty and=
bred
in the atmosphere, at once bleak and coarse, of an obscure country town in a
backward province. Moscow did, to some degree, soften and civilise him, but
there remained a core of crudeness, and a self-conscious, rought, sometimes
aggressive tone in his writing. This tone now enters Russian literature, ne=
ver
to leave it. Belinsky spoke in this sort of accent becaue this kind of rasi=
ed
dramatic tone, this harshness, was as natural to him as to Beethoven.
Belinsky’s followers adopted his manner because they were the party of
the enrages, and this was the traditional accent of anger and revolt,
the earnest of violence to come, the rough voice of the insulted and the
oppressed peasant masses proclaiming to the entire world the approaching en=
d of
their suffering at the hands of the discredited older order.
“Belinsky =
was
the first and most powerful of the ‘new men’, the radicals and
revolutionaries who shook and in the end destroyed the classical aristocrat=
ic
tradition in Russian literature. The literary elite, the friends of
Pushkin, despite radical ideas obtained abroad after the Napoleonic wards,
despite Decembrist tendencies, was on the whole conservative, if not in
conviction, yet in social habits and temper, connected with the court and t=
he
army, and deeply patriotic. Belinsky, to whom this seemed a retrograde outl=
ook,
was convinced that Russia had more to learn from the West than to teach it,
that the Slavophile movement was romantic illusion, at times blind
nationalistic megalomania, that Western scientific progress offered the only
hope of lifting Russia from her backward state. And yet this same prophet of
material civilisation, who intellectually was so ardent a Westerner, was
emotionally more deeply and unhappily Russian than any of his contemporarie=
s,
spoke no foreign language, could not breathe freely in any environment save
that of Russia, and felt miserable and persecution-ridden abroad. He found
Western habits worthy of respect and emulation, but to him personally quite
insufferable. When abroad he began to sigh most bitterly for home and after=
a
month away was almost insane with nostalgia. In this sense he represents in=
his
person the uncompromising elements of a Slav temperament and way of life to=
a
far sharper degree than any of his contemporaries, even Dostoevsky.
“This deep=
inner
clash between intellectual conviction and emotional – sometimes almost
physical – predilection is a very characteristically Russian disease.=
As
the nineteenth century developed, and as the struggle between social classes
became sharper and more articulate, this psychological conflict which torme=
nted
Belinsky emerges more clearly: the revolutionaries, whether they are social
democrats, or social revolutionaries, or communists, unless they are noblem=
en
or university professors – that is, almost professionally members of =
an
international society – may make their bow with great conviction and
sincerity to the West in the sense that they believe in its civilisation, a=
bove
all its sciences, its techniques, its political thought and practice, but w=
hen
they are forced to emigrate they find life abroad more agonising than other
exiles…
“To some d=
egree
this peculiar amalgam of love and hate is intrinsic to contemporary Russian
feeling about Europe: on the one hand intellectual respect, envy, admiratio=
n,
desire to emulate and excel; on the other emotional hostility and suspicion=
and
contempt, a sense of being clumsy, de trop, of being outsiders; lead=
ing
as a result to an alternation between excessive self-prostration before, and
aggressive flouting of, Western values. No recent visitor to the Soviet Uni=
on
can have failed to remark this phenomenon: a combination of intellectual
inadequacy and emotional superiority, a sense of the West as enviably
self-restrained, clever, efficient and successful; also cramped, cold, mean,
calculating and fenced in, incapable of large views or generous emotion,
incapable of feeling which at times rises too high and overflows its banks,
unable to abandon everything and sacrifice itself in response to some unique
historical challenge; incapable of ever attaining a rich flowering of life.
This attitude is the most constant element in Belinsky’s most personal
and characteristic writings: if it is not the most valuable element in him,=
it
is the most Russian: Russian history past and present is not intelligible
without it, today more palpably than ever…”[633]
The Slavophiles =
were
free of this neurotic attitude to the West that Belinsky typified among the
westernizers; they were both more critical of the West, and calmer in relat=
ion
to it. The reason was that they, unlike the Westernizers, had discovered the
heart of Russia, her Orthodox Christianity. For them, the critical event in
European history was the schism between Eastern and Western Christianity in=
the
middle of the eleventh century. In thus tracing the origins of the differen=
ce
between East and West to the religious schism between the Orthodox a=
nd
the Roman Catholics of the eleventh century, as opposed to later eve=
nts
such as the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century or the
reforms of Peter the Great in the eighteenth, the Slavophiles made a
very important step in the reintegration of Russian historical thought with=
the
traditional outlook on history of Orthodox Christianity. This wider and dee=
per
historical perspective enabled them to see that, having been sundered from =
the
unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East for so ma=
ny
centuries, it was inevitable that a new kind of man, homo
occidentalis, with a new psychology, new aims and new forms of social a=
nd
political organization, should have been created in the West, from where it
penetrated into the Orthodox East.
One of the first=
to
see this clearly was Belinsky’s protégé, Nicholas
Vasilyevich Gogol. Having made his name by satirical and fantastical works =
such
as Notes of a Madman, The Greatcoat, The Government Inspector and, a=
bove
all, Dead Souls, he suddenly and quite unexpectedly turned to Orthod=
oxy,
Autocracy and Nationhood. This change of heart was clearly proclaimed in
While Belinsky l= ooked forward to the rationalism of Tolstoy, Gogol’s views on the Westernizer-Slavophile controversy both looked back to Pushkin and forward = to Dostoyevsky’s Pushkin Speech. “All these Slavists and Europeans, or old believers and new believers, or easterners and westerners, they are all speaking about two different sides of one and the same subject, without in any way divining that they are not contradicting or going against each other.” The quarrel was “a big misunderstanding”. And yet “there is more truth on the side of the Slavists and easterners”, since their teaching is more right “on the whole”, while the westerners are more right “in the detailsR= 21;.[634]<= o:p>
“The main =
theme
of the book,” writes I.M. Andreev, “was God and the Church. And
when Gogol was reproached for this, he replied, simply and with conviction:
‘How can one be silent, when the stones are ready to cry out about
God.’
“Like Khom=
iakov
and Ivan Kireevsky, God summoned all ‘to life in the Church’.
“The pages
devoted to the Orthodox Church are the best pages of the book! No Russian
writer had expressed as did Gogol such sincere, filial love for the Mother
Church, such reverence and veneration for Her, such a profound and penetrat=
ing
understanding both of Orthodoxy as a whole and of the smallest details of t=
he
whole of the Church’s rites.
“’We
possess a treasure for which there is no price,’ is how he characteri=
zes
the Church, and he continued: ‘This Church which, as a chaste virgin,=
has
alone been preserved from the time of the Apostles in her original undefiled
purity, this Church, which in her totality with her profound dogmas and
smallest external rites has been as it were brought right down from heaven =
for
the Russian people, which alone has the power to resolve all our perplexing
knots and questions… And this Church, which was created for life, we =
have
to this day not introduced into our life’…
“The
religio-political significance of Correspondence was huge. This book
appeared at a time when in the invisible depths of historical life the dest=
iny
of Russia and Russian Orthodox culture was being decided. Would Russia hold=
out
in Orthodoxy, or be seduced by atheism and materialism? Would the Russian O=
rthodox
autocracy be preserved in Russia, or would socialism and communism triumph?
These questions were linked with other, still more profound ones, that touc=
hed
on the destinies of the whole world. What was to come? The flourishing and
progress of irreligious humanistic culture, or the beginning of the
pre-apocalyptic period of world history?
“Gogol lou=
dly
and with conviction proclaimed that the Truth was in Orthodoxy and in the
Russian Orthodox Autocracy, and that the historical ‘to be or not to =
be’
of Russian Orthodox culture, on the preservation of which there also depend=
ed
the destiny of the whole world in the nearest future, was now being decided.
The world was on the edge of death, and we have entered the pre-apocalyptic
period of world history.
“Corres=
pondence
came out in 1847. Pletnev published it at Gogol’s behest.
“This book=
, in
its hidden essence, was not understood by its contemporaries and was subjec=
ted
to criticism not only on the part of enemies, but also of friends (of cours=
e,
the former and the latter proceeded from completely different premises).
“The enemi=
es
were particularly disturbed and annoyed by Gogol’s sincere and convin=
ced
approval of the foundations of those social-political ordered which to
so-called ‘enlightened’ people seemed completely
unsustainable.”[635]
Belinksy was fur=
ious. “Russia expects fr=
om her
writers salvation from Orthodox, Nationhood and Autocracy,” he
wrote in his Letter to Gogol in 1847. And he now called Gogol a
“preacher of the knout, apostle of ignorance, champion of superstition
and obscurantism”.
Russia, he thund=
ered,
“does not need sermons (she has had her fill of them!), nor prayers (=
she
knows them by heart), but the awakening in people of the feeling of human
dignity, for so many centuries buried in mud and dung; she needs laws and
rights compatible not with the doctrines of the church, but with justice and
common sense.”[636]
Gogol’s fr=
iends,
continues Andreev, “criticized Correspondence for other
reasons… The most serious and in many respects just criticism belonge=
d to
the Rzhev Protopriest Fr. Matthew Konstantinovsky, to whom Gogol, who did n=
ot
yet know him personally, sent his book for review. Fr. Matthew condemned ma=
ny
places, especially the chapter on the theatre, and wrote to Gogol that he
‘would give an account for it to God’. Gogol objected, pointing=
out
that his intention had been good. But Fr. Matthew advised him not to justify
himself before his critics, but to ‘obey the spirit living in us, and=
not
our earthly corporeality’ and ‘to turn to the interior lifeR=
17;.
“The failu=
re of
the book had an exceptionally powerful effect on Gogol. After some resistan=
ce
and attempts to clarify ‘the whirlwind of misunderstandings’,
without rejecting his principled convictions, Gogol humbled himself and
acknowledged his guilt in the fact that he had dared to be a prophet and
preacher of the Truth when he personally was not worthy of serving it. Even=
to
the sharp and cruel letter of Belinsky Gogol replied meekly and humbly: =
216;God
knows, perhaps there is an element of truth in your words.’”[637]
Russia and Europe: (3) Herzen vs. Khom=
iakov
Belinsky had dei=
fied
the West, but never felt at home there. Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was the
first Westernizer to symbolize the Westernizers’ exile from Russian
values by permanently settling in the West, in London. From there, writes
Berlin, “he established his free printing press, and in the 1850s beg=
an
to publish two periodicals in Russia, The Pole Star [recalling the
Masonic lodge of the same name] and The Bell (the first issues appea=
red
in 1855 and 1857 respectively), which marked the birth of systematic
revolutionary agitation – and conspiracy – by Russian exiles
directed against the tsarist regime.”[638]
Herzen followed Belinsky =
and the
westernizers in his disdain for Russia’s pre-Petrine past: “You
need the past and its traditions, but we need to tear Russia away from them=
. We
do not want Russia before Peter, because for us it does not exist, but you =
do
not want the new Russia. You reject it, but we reject ancient
Rus’”.[639]
However, after t=
he
failure of the 1848 revolution, Herzen began to lose faith in the western p=
ath
to happiness. He began to see the futility (if not the criminality) of viol=
ent
revolution, and of such slogans as Proudhon’s “all property is
theft”, or Bakunin’s “the Passion to destroy is the sa=
me
as the Passion to create”. The revolution had only left the poor poor=
er
than they had been before, while the passion to destroy seemed as exhilarat=
ing
as the passion to create only in the heat of the moment, and not when the
pieces had to be picked up and paid for the next day…
“A curse on you,=
221; he
wrote with regard to 1848, “year of blood and madness, year of the
triumph of meanness, beastliness, stupidity!… What did you do,
revolutionaries frightened of revolution, political tricksters, buffoons of
liberty?… Democracy can create nothing positive… and therefore =
it
has no future… Socialism left a victor on the field of battle will
inevitably be deformed into a commonplace bourgeois philistinism. Then a cr=
y of
denial will be wrung from the titanic breast of the revolutionary minority =
and
the deadly battle will begin again… We have wasted our spirit in the
regions of the abstract and general, just as the monks let it wither in the
world of prayer and contemplation.”[640]
And again: ̶=
0;If
progress is the goal, or whom are we working? Who is this Moloch who, as the
toilers approach him, instead of rewarding them, draws back; and, as a
consolation to the exhausted and doomed multitudes, shouting ‘moritur=
i te
salutant’ [‘those who are about to die salute you’], can =
only
give the… mocking answer that after their death all will be beautiful=
on
earth. Do you truly wish to condemn the human beings alive today to the sad
role… of wretched galley-slaves who, up to their knees in mud, drag a
barge… with… ‘progress in the future’ upon its
flag?… a goal which is infinitely remote is no goal, only… a
deception; a goal must be closer – at the very least the labourerR=
17;s
wage, or pleasure in work performed.”[641]
“He was
disillusioned with western civilization and found that it was deeply penetr=
ated
by the petty bourgeois spirit, and was built on ‘respect for the sacr=
ed
right of property’ and ‘has no other ideals except a thirst for
personal security’.
“’Europe,’ said Herzen, ‘is approaching a
terrible cataclysm. The medieval world is collapsing. The political and
religious revolutions are weakening under the burden of their own
powerlessness, they have done great things, but they have not fulfilled the=
ir
task… They have destroyed faith in the throne and the altar, but have=
not
realized freedom, they have lit in hearts a desire which they are not able =
to
satisfy. Parliamentarism, Protestantism – all these were deferments, =
temporary
salvation, powerless outposts against death and degeneration; their time has
passed. From 1849 they began to understand that neither ossified Roman law =
nor
cunning casuistry nor nauseating deistic philosophy nor merciless religious
rationalism are able to put off the realization of the destinies of
society.’
“Herzen di=
d not
believe in the creative function of contemporary democracy, he considered t=
hat
it possessed only a terrible power of destruction, but not the capacity to
create.
“’In
democracy,’ said Herzen, ‘there is a terrible power of destruct=
ion,
but when it takes it upon itself to create something, it gets lost in stude=
nt
experiments, in political etudes. There is no real creativity in
democracy.’
“Hence Her=
zen
drew the merciless conclusion that the perishing order must be destroyed to=
its
foundations.
“This
destruction had to be universal, it would come in a storm and blood.
“’Who
knows what will come out of this blood? But whatever comes out, it is enough
that in this paroxysm of madness, revenge, discord and retribution the world
that restricts the new man, and hinders him from living, hinders him for
establishing himself in the future, will perish. And that is good, and for =
that
reason let chaos and destruction flourish and may the future be
constructed.’”[642]
But then the
unexpected: disillusioned with the West, this westernizer par excellence=
turns in hope to – Russia. “’The future,’ declared
Herzen, not without some pride, ‘belongs to the Russian people, who is
called to bring an end to the decrepit and powerless world and clear a place
for the new and beautiful [world].’
“In 1851 i=
n a
letter to Michelet Herzen wrote: ‘Amidst this chaos, amidst this dying
agony and tormented regeneration, amidst this world falling into dust around
its cradle, men’s gaze is involuntarily directed towards the
East.’”[643] And
when Alexander II emancipated the peasants in 1861, he hailed him in the wo=
rds
of Julian the Apostate to Christ: “You have conquered, Galilaean!R=
21;[644]
But what in part=
icular
in Russian reality attracted the gaze and arouse the hopes of Herzen? The
Russian peasant commune or mir. Perhaps, he thought, this was a
specifically kind of socialism. As N.O. Lossky writes: “Disappointed =
with
Western Europe and its ‘petty bourgeois’ spirit, he came to the
conclusion that the Russian village commune and the artel hold a pro=
mise
of socialism being realized in Russia rather than in any other country. The
village commune meant for him peasant communism [‘The Russian People =
and
Socialism’, 1852, II, 148]. In view of this he came to feel that
reconciliation with the Slavophiles was possible. In his article ‘Mos=
cow
Panslavism and Russian Europeanism’ (1851) he wrote: Is not socialism
‘accepted by the Slavophiles as it is by us? It is a bridge on which =
we
can meet and hold hands’ (I, 338).”[645]
Certainly, the
Slavophiles agreed with Herzen on the mir. The most famous of them,
Alexis Stepanovich Khomiakov, “attached the greatest value to the Rus=
sian
village commune, the mir, with its meetings that passed unanimous
decisions and its traditional justice in accordance with custom, conscience,
and inner truth.”[646]
As Richard Pipes
writes, the Slavophiles “became aware of the peasant commune as an
institution confined to Russia, and extolled it as proof that the Russian
people, allegedly lacking in the acquisitive ‘bourgeois’ impuls=
es
of western Europeans, were destined to solve mankind’s social problem=
s.
Haxthausen popularised this view in his book, published in 1847. In the sec=
ond
half of the nineteenth century, the Russian mir became in Western Eu=
rope
the starting-point of several theories concerning communal land-tenure of
primitive societies…”[647]
Moreover, there =
would
seem to be some prima facie similarity between Herzen’s idea of
“Russian socialism” and Khomiakov’s key idea of soborn=
ost’…
Khomiakov had no=
t gone
through the tormenting journey from westernism to Orthodoxy that his friend
Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky had undergone, but had remained that rarity in t=
he
Russian educated classes – a man completely au fait with modern
developments (he had several technological inventions to his credit), but a=
lso
a committed Orthodox who practised his faith openly and without shame. As R=
oy
Campbell writes, “he was as far removed from the ‘ridiculousnes=
s of
conservatism’ as he was from the revolution movement with its
‘immoral and passionate self-reliance’”.[648]
“In
contradistinction to Kireyevsky and K. Aksakov,” writes Lossky,
“Khomiakov does not slur over the evils of Russian life but severely
condemns them. At the beginning of the Crimean War (against Turkey, France =
and
England, 1854-1855) he denounced with the fire and inspiration of a prophet,
the Russia of his day (before the great reforms of Alexander II) and called=
her
to repentance.
“Western E=
urope
has failed to embody the Christian ideal of the wholeness of life through
overemphasizing logical knowledge and rationality; Russia has so far failed=
to
embody it because complete, all-embracing truth from its very nature develo=
ps
slowly… Nevertheless Khomiakov believes in the great mission of the
Russian people when it comes fully to recognize and express ‘all the
spiritual forces and principles that lie at the basis of Holy Orthodox
Russia.’ ‘Russia is called to stand at the forefront of univers=
al
culture; history gives her the right to do so because of the completeness a=
nd
manysidedness of her guiding principles; such a right given to a nation imp=
oses
a duty upon every one of its members.’ Russia’s ideal is not to=
be
the richest or most powerful country but to become ‘the most Christia=
n of
all human societies’.
“In spite =
of
Khomiakov’s… critical attitude toward Western Europe,… [h=
e]
speaks of it in one of his poems as ‘the land of holy miracles’=
. He
was particularly fond of England. The best things in her social and politic=
al
life were due, he thought, to the right balance being maintained between
liberalism and conservatism. The conservatives stood for the organic force =
of
the national life developing from its original sources while the liberals s=
tood
for the personal, individual force, for analytical, critical reason. The
balance between these two forces in England has never yet been destroyed
because ‘every liberal is a bit of a conservative at bottom because h=
e is
English’. In England, as in Russia, the people have kept their religi=
on
and distrust analytical reason. But Protestant scepticism is undermining the
balance between the organic and the analytic forces, and this is a menace to
England in the future…”[649]
=
; In another place, Khom=
iakov
saw the menace to England in her conservatism: “England with her mode=
st
science and her serious love of religious truth might give some hope; but
– permit the frank expression of my thoughts – England is held =
by
the iron chain of traditional custom.”[650]
While attached to
England, when it came to comparing the Eastern and Western forms of
Christianity, Khomiakov was severe in his judgements. Influenced by Elder
Ambrose of Optina as Kireevsky had been by Elder Macarius, he had a deep,
unshakeable confidence in the Orthodox Church. “Peter Christoff
characterizes Khomiakov’s belief as follows, ‘Although Khomiakov
respected and valued much in the Western nations he was absolutely convince=
d of
the superiority of Orthodoxy.’ The Slavic world-view and the Russian
peasant commune specifically served as a foundation for a new social order =
with
the emphasis on the Orthodox Church. To refer to Khomiakov’s Christian
Orthodox messianism would in no way do him an injustice. Khomiakov believed
that Russia had a mission to bring the whole world under the ‘roof=
217;
of the Orthodox Church.”[651]
“
This sharp rejec=
tion
of the right of Catholics and Protestants to call themselves members of the
One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church was in itself remarkable after the
mild ecumenism that was so prevalent in his time. This anti-ecumenism was
shared by some of his educated contemporaries, such as Elder Ambrose and Bi=
shop
Ignatius Brianchaninov, but not by many.
However, it was =
not
only the Oneness of the Church that Khomiakov explicated with particular su=
ccess,
but also Her Catholicity, or sobornost’ in the Slavonic
translation, which he defined as “unity-in-diversity”. “T=
he
Church is called Catholic,” writes Khomiakov, “because She belo=
ngs
to the whole world, and not to some particular locality; because the whole =
of
humanity and the whole of the earth is sanctified by Her, and not some
particular people or country; because Her essence consists in the agreement=
and
unity of spirit and life of all Her members who recognize Her throughout the
earth.
“It follow=
s from
this that when a community is called a local Church, like the Greek, Russia=
n or
Syrian, this signifies only the gathering of the members of the Church livi=
ng
in such-and-such a country (Greece, Russia, Syria, etc.), and does not cont=
ain
within itself the presupposition that one community of Christians could exp=
ress
the teaching of the Church, or give a dogmatic interpretation to the teachi=
ng
of the Church, without the agreement of the other communities; still less d=
oes
it presuppose that some community or community pastor could prescribe its or
his interpretation to others. The grace of faith is not separate from holin=
ess
of life and not one community of Christians or pastor can be recognized as
preservers of the whole faith, just as not one pastor or community can be
considered representative of the whole holiness of the Church.”[654] For
“it is not people, or a multitude of people, that preserve tradition =
and
write in the Church, but the Spirit of God, Who lives in the coming togethe=
r of
the Church.”[655]
The principle of=
sobornost’,
writes Lossky, “implies that the absolute bearer of truth in the Chur=
ch
is not the patriarch who has supreme authority, not the clergy, and not even
the ecumenical council, but only the Church as a whole. ‘There have b=
een
heretical councils,’ says Khomiakov; ‘for instance, those in wh=
ich
a half-Arian creed was drawn up; externally, they differed in no way from t=
he
ecumenical councils – but why were they rejected? Solely because their
decisions were not recognized by the whole body of the faithful as the voic=
e of
the Church.’ Khomiakov is referring here to the epistle of the Eastern
Patriarchs to Pope Pius IX (1848), which says: ‘The invincible truth =
and
immutable certainty of the Christian dogma does not depend upon the hierarc=
hs
of the Church; it is preserved by the whole of the people composing the Chu=
rch
which is the body of Christ’ (A letter to Palmer, October 11, 1850. I=
I,
363).”[656]
“Solely be=
cause
their decisions were not recognized as the voice of the Church by the entire
ecclesial people, byt that people and within that world where, in questions=
of
faith, there is no difference between the scholar and the unlearned, cleric=
and
lay person, man and woman, and king and subject… and where… the
heresy of a learned bishop is refuted by an illiterate shepherd, so that all
might be joined in the free unity of living faith which is the manifestatio=
n of
the Spirit of God.”[657]
Although council=
s are
not infallible, it is nevertheless in the coming together of the clergy and=
the
people in councils to decide dogmatic and canonical questions that the Holy
Spirit of truth reveals Himself, as in the Seven Ecumenical Councils. And so
the Church is Conciliar by essence; Her truth is revealed to a multi=
tude
of Her members meeting in council, and not to just one of her members think=
ing
in solitude, as the West supposes - whether that individual is the Roman Po=
pe
or a Protestant layman.
It is at this point that =
the
Slavonic translation of of the Greek word k=
a=
q=
o=
l=
i=
k=
h, “Catholic”,=
by the
Slavonic word sobornaia becomes illuminating. For the word soborn=
aia
is derived from sobor, meaning "council" (or a large church
with two or three altars). This implies a direct link between the Church's
Catholicity and Her Conciliarity.
And this i=
n turn
suggests that the vital distinguishing quality of Orthodox Catholicity, as
opposed to Roman Catholicism and Protestant democratism lies in its
Conciliarity. For it is in Her conciliar life that the Church preserves Her
unity and drives out heresies. This Protestant individualism cannot do, sin=
ce
it makes the opinion of every man the supreme arbiter of truth, and
which Roman pseudo-Catholicism cannot do, since it makes the opinion of =
one
man the supreme arbiter.
Now, as Fr. Mich=
ael Pomazansky
points out, "in Greek there is no philological or linguistic connection
between the concepts "catholic" and "council" (ecumenic=
al).
A council of the Church is called in Greek S=
u=
n=
o=
d=
o=
V, and an ecumenical counc=
il, =
o=
i=
k=
o=
u=
m=
e=
n=
i=
k=
h S=
u=
n=
o=
d=
o=
V".[658]
Nevertheless, th=
e lack
of a philological connection does not mean that there is no deeper semantic=
and
theological connection, a connection seen by the translators Saints Cyril a=
nd
Methodius when they chose this translation.
Moreover, there =
is no
serious difference between Khomiakov’s definition of Catholicity and
Pomazansky’s: "Catholicity refers to the fact that the Church is=
not
limited to space, by earthly boundaries, nor is it limited in time, that is=
, by
the passing of generations into the life beyond the grave. In its catholic
fullness, in its catholicity, the Church embraces both the Church of the ca=
lled
and the Church of the chosen, the Church on earth and the Church in
Heaven."[659]
Or St. Maximus t=
he
Confessor’s: "Men, women and children, profoundly divided as to
race, nation, language, manner of life, work, knowledge, honour, fortune...=
are
all recreated by the Church in the Spirit. To all equally she communicates a
divine aspect. All receive from her a unique nature which cannot be broken =
asunder,
a nature which no longer permits one henceforth to take into consideration =
the
many and profound differences which are their lot. In that way all are rais=
ed
up and united in a truly catholic manner."[660]
Khomiakov's argu=
ment
was as follows: "’Sobor’ expresses the idea of a gathering=
not
only in the sense of an actual, visible union of many in a given place, but
also in the more general sense of the continual possibility of such a union=
. In
other words: it expresses the idea of unity in multiplicity. Therefore, it =
is
obvious that the word ka=
q=
o=
l=
i=
k=
o=
V, as understood by the tw=
o great
servants of the Word of God sent by Greece to the Slavs, was derived not fr=
om =
k=
a=
t=
a and o=
l=
a, but from =
k=
a=
t=
a and o=
l=
o=
n; for k=
a=
t=
a often has the same meani=
ng as
our preposition 'according to', for instance: k=
a=
t=
a M=
a=
t=
q=
a=
i=
o=
n, k=
a=
t=
a M=
a=
r=
k=
o=
n, 'according to Matthew',
'according to Mark'. The Catholic Church is the Church according to all, or
according to the unity of all, ka=
q'o=
l=
w=
n t=
w=
n p=
i=
s=
t=
e=
u=
o=
n=
t=
w=
n, the Church according to
complete unanimity, the Church in which all peoples have disappeared and in
which there are no Greeks, no barbarians, no difference of status, no
slaveowners, and no slaves; that Church about which the Old Testament
prophesied and which was realised in the New Testament - in one word, the
Church as it was defined by St. Paul."[661]
"The Aposto=
lic
Church of the ninth century (the time of Saints Cyril and Methodius) is nei=
ther
the Church kaq' =
e=
k=
a=
s=
t=
o=
n (according to the unders=
tanding
of each) as the Protestants have it, nor the Church k=
a=
t=
a t=
o=
n e=
p=
i=
s=
k=
o=
p=
o=
n t=
h=
V R=
w=
m=
h=
V (according to the unders=
tanding
of the bishop of Rome) as is the case with the Latins; it is the Church =
k=
a=
q' o=
l=
o=
n (according to the unders=
tanding
of all in their unity), the Church as it existed prior to the Western split=
and
as it still remains among those whom God preserved from the split: for, I
repeat, this split is a heresy against the dogma of the unity of the
Church."[662]
The Catholicity =
of the
Orthodox Church was shared, according to Khomiakov, neither by the Roman
Catholic “Church”, which sacrificed diversity for the sake of
unity, nor with Protestantism, which sacrificed unity for diversity. Instea=
d of
Orthodox Catholicity, which belonged only to the Orthodox Church, the Papis=
ts
had Romanism, that is, mechanical obedience to the Bishop of Rome and
his ex cathedra definitions of truth. This guaranteed external unity
(for a time), but no inner consensus. And so it violated the truth of the
Church Herself, Her Catholicity.
Moreover, Romani=
sm
contains the seeds of Protestantism insofar as the Pope was the first prote=
ster
against the inner Catholicity of the Church as expressed in the Seven
Ecumenical Councils accepted in both East and West. As Khomiakov put it:
"Having appropriated the right of independently deciding a dogmatic
question within the area of the Ecumenical Church, private opinion carried
within itself the seed of the growth and legitimation of Protestantism, that
is, of free investigation torn from the living tradition of unity based on =
mutual
love."[663]
The truth is given, not to individuals as such, but to the Church, - “=
;the
pillar and ground of the truth” (I Timothy 3.15), in St.
Paul’s words, - understood as a conciliar organism united in freedom =
and
love. Thus “clarity of understanding is placed in dependence on the m=
oral
law. The communion of love is not only useful, but completely necessary for=
the
attainment of the truth, and the attainment of the truth is based on it and=
is
impossible without it. The truth, being unattainable for individualistic
thought, is accessible only to the coming together of thoughts bound by
love.”[664]
We see, then, th=
at
Khomiakov’s conception of sobornost’ is strictly theolog=
ical
and ecclesiological, and cannot be identified with Herzen’s idea of t=
he mir
as the embryo of “Russian socialism”.
However, some ha=
ve
accused him of just such a degradation of a theological mystery into a secu=
lar
ideal, of confusing sobornost’ with democracy, the spiritual
warmth of communion in Christ with the natural warmth of a family or societ=
y.
“One could=
even
say,” writes S. Khoruzhij, “that the social aspect, the
interpretation of sobornost’ as the principle of social existe=
nce,
in time came to occupy centre stage, leaving the original ecclesiological
meaning of the concept in the background and almost forgotten. Here we see a
fairly systematic evolution. From the beginning there lived in the minds of=
the
early Slavophiles an idea of the communal ideal expressing the harmonious
management of social life. They were in agreement in considering the closest
historical approximation to it the village commune, the peasant mir,
and, correspondingly, the ideal was usually called ‘communality’=
; or
‘communal unity’, being defined as ‘unity which consists
in… the concept of a natural and moral brotherhood and inner
justice’ (I, 99). It is a banal tradition to reproach the Slavophiles=
for
idealizing the communal set-up and Russian history. For all its triteness, =
the
reproach is just; although Khomiakov tried to moderate this tendency
(especially after the Crimean war), he never managed to measure with one
measure and judge with an equal judgement home and abroad, Russia and the W=
est.
But we must point something else out here. However embellished were his
descriptions of the sources and bases of Russian history and statehood,
embellishment never became deification, nor was communality identified with=
sobornost’.
They were two different principles, and Khomiakov did not think of merging =
them
into each other, bringing a human, secular matter to the level of the Thean=
dric
and grace-filled. He saw an impassible boundary between the one and the oth=
er.
“However, =
it was
not long before people with frightening ease lost the ability to discern th=
is
boundary – and then learned to deny it. Sobornost’ was
inexorably, with greater and greater strength and openness, brought down to
earth, deprived of its grace-filled content and reduced to a simple social =
and
organic principle: to a certain degree this process was the very essence of=
the
ideological evolution of Slavophilism, from its earlier to its later varian=
ts,
and from it to the conservatism of the last reign, to post-revolutionary
Eurasianism and still further. In this process of the degeneration of the p=
ath
of sobornost’ it crossed paths with the socialist idea: as has
been pointed out more than once, ‘in this attraction to the ideal
of… the commune it is not difficult to discern a subconscious and
erroneous thirst for sobornost’ [Florovsky]. Therefore =
in
the same descending line we find in the end all the communard variations on=
the
theme of collectivisation, Soviet patriotism and even National
Bolshevism… At the same as grace freedom is cast out – and, as a
result, sobornost’ completely lost its spiritual nature, being
turned into the regulative principle either of mechanical statehood, or of =
the
organic life of the primitive community. The link with the Church, churchne=
ss,
was for the most part preserved externally. However, it goes without saying
that the very idea of the Church could here degenerate as much as the idea =
of sobornost’.
In the first case the Church was likened to the state to the point of being
indistinguishable from it, and in the second it was a primitively pagan
institution for the sanctification of life and manners. They claimed to be
preserving churchness, while rejecting the principle of freedom – and
this was spiritual blindness. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there=
is
freedom’, says Paul, and Orthodoxy reveals his covenant through the
ascetic principle of synergy: the grace of the Holy Spirit lives in the Chu=
rch,
but each member of the Church acquires it by his personal spiritual activit=
y,
to the realization of his own personal liberty. And only in ‘the
agreement of personal liberties’ (Khomiakov) is the grace-filled Body=
of
the Lord put together.”[665]
Russia
and Europe: (4) Kireevsky
We have seen tha=
t the
Slavophiles believed that western civilization since the Schism in the elev=
enth
century had created a new kind of man, homo occidentalis. The questi=
on,
then, was: what were the main characteristics of this new man, and in what =
did
he differ from homo orientalis, the older, original kind of Christian
and European, who was now to be found only in those Balkan lands conquered =
by
the Turks and in the distant outpost of Kievan Rus’?
The first clear answer to=
this
question was expounded by Ivan Vasilievich Kireevsky in his Reply to
Khomiakov (1839) and On the Character of European Civilization and I=
ts
Relationship to Russian Civilization (1852).
K=
ireevsky,
a man of thoroughly western education, tastes and habits, who converted to =
the
eastern ideal in adult life, found the answer to this question in the growt=
h of
western rationalism.
The beginning of Kireevsky’s spiritual emancipation may be said to date to 1829, when,= as Fr. Sergius Chetverikov writes, he “appeared for the first time in the field of literature with an article about Pushkin, which revealed a remarka= bly clear understanding of the works of this poet. In this article he already e= xpressed doubt in the absolute truth of German philosophy and pointed out the pressi= ng need for the development of a school of original Russian scientific thought. ‘German philosophy cannot take root in us. Our philosophy must arise = from current questions, from the prevailing interest of our people and th= eir individual ways of life.’ But at the same time we must not reject the experience of Western European thought. ‘The crown of European enlightenment served as the cradle of our education. It was born when the o= ther states had already completed the cycle of their intellectual development; a= nd where they finished, there we began. Like a young sister in a large harmoni= ous family, Russia was enriched by the experience of her older brothers and sis= ters prior to her entry into the world.’”[666]<= o:p>
At this stage th=
e full
uniqueness and saving truth of Orthodoxy was perhaps not yet fully revealed=
to
Kireevsky. The decisive moment in his conversion, as Nina Lazareva writes, =
was
his marriage to Natalya Petrovna Arbeneva in 1834: “The beginning of =
his
family life was for Ivan Vasilievich also the beginning of the transformati=
on
of his inner world, the beginning of his coming out of that dead-end in whi=
ch
his former rationalistic world-view had led him. The difference between the
whole structure of Natalya Petrovna’s life, educated as she had been =
in
the rules of strict piety, and that of Ivan Vasilievich, who had passed his
days and nights in tobacco-filled rooms reading and discussing the latest
philosophical works, could not fail to wound both of them.
“In the no= te written by A.I. Koshelev from the words of N.P. Kireevsky and entitled ‘The Story of Ivan Vasilievich’s Conversion’, we read: ’In the first period after their marriage her fulfilment of our Church rites and customs made an unpleasant impression on him, but from the tolera= nce and delicacy that was natural to him he did not hinder her in this at all. = She on her side was still more sorrowfully struck by his lack of faith and comp= lete neglect of all the customs of the Orthodox Church. They had conversations w= hich ended with it being decided that he would not hinder her in the fulfilment = of her obligations, and he would be free in his actions, but he promised in her presence not to blaspheme and by all means to cut short the conversations of his friends that were unpleasant to her. In the second year of their marria= ge he asked his wife to read Cousin. She willing did this, but when he began to ask her for her opinion of this book, she said that there was much good in = it, but that she had not found anything new, for in the works of the Holy Fathe= rs it was all expounded in a much profounder and more satisfying way. He laugh= ed and was quiet. He began to ask his wife to read Voltaire with him. She told= him that she was ready to read any serious book that he might suggest to her, b= ut she disliked mockery and every kind of blasphemy and she could neither hear= nor read them. Then after some time they began to read Schelling together, and = when great, radiant thoughts stopped them and I.V. Kireevsky demanded wonderment from his wife, she first said that she knew these thoughts from the works of the Holy Fathers. She often pointed them out to him in the books of the Holy Fathers, which forced Ivan Vasilievich to read whole pages sometimes. It was unpleasant for him to recognise that there really was much in the Holy Fath= ers that he had admired in Schelling. He did not like to admit this, but secret= ly he took his wife’s books and read them with interest.’
“At that t=
ime
the works of the Holy Fathers were hardly published in Russia, lovers of
spiritual literature transcribed them themselves or for small sums of money
they engaged transcribers. Natalya Petrovna made notes from those books whi=
ch
her spiritual father, Hieromonk Philaret (Puliashkin) gave her to read. In =
his
time he had laboured much to prepare the Slavonic Philokalia for
publication. These were works of the Holy Fathers collected by St. Paisius
Velichkovsky which contained instructions on mental prayer, that is, on the
cleansing of the soul from passions, on the means to attaining this and in
particular on the union of the mind and the heart in the Jesus prayer. In 1=
836
Ivan Vasilievich for the first time read the works of St. Isaac the Syrian,=
who
was called the teacher of silence. Thus the philosopher came into contact w=
ith
the hitherto unknown to him, centuries-old Orthodox enlightenment, which al=
ways
witnessed to the True Light, our Lord Jesus Christ.
“’Acquaintance with the Novospassky monk Philaret, conve=
rsations
with the holy elder and the reading of various works of the Holy Fathers ga=
ve
him pleasure and drew him to the side of piety. He went to see Fr. Philaret,
but each time as it were unwillingly. It was evident that he wanted to go to
him, but forcing was always necessary.’ This continued until, accordi=
ng
to the Providence of God, and thanks to the clairvoyance of Elder Philaret =
and
his knowledge of the human soul, a truly wondrous event took place: ‘=
I.V.
Kireevsky in the past never wore a cross round his neck. His wife had more =
than
once asked him to do that, but Ivan Vasilyevich had not replied. Finally, he
told her once that he would put on a cross if it would be sent to him by Fr.
Philaret, whose mind and piety he warmly admired. Natalya Petrovna went to =
Fr.
Philaret and communicated this to him. The elder made the sign of the cross,
took it off his neck and said to Natalya Petrovna: ‘Let this be to Iv=
an
Vasilyevich for salvation.’
“When Nata=
lya
Petrovna went home, Ivan Vasilyevich on meeting her said: ‘Well, what=
did
Fr. Philaret say?’ She took out the cross and gave it to Ivan
Vasilyevich. Ivan Vasilyevich asked her: ‘What is this cross?’
Natalya Petrovna said to him that Fr. Philaret had taken it off himself and
said: let this be to him for salvation. Ivan Vasilyevich fell on his knees =
and
said: ‘Well, now I expect salvation for my soul, for in my mind I had
determined: if Fr. Philaet takes off his cross and sends it to me, then it =
will
be clear that God is calling me to salvation.’ From that moment a
decisive turnaround in the thoughts and feelings of Ivan Vasilyevich was
evident.’”[667]
Soon Kireevsky m=
et the
famous Optina Elder Macarius, with whom he started the series of Optina
translations of the works of the Holy Fathers into Russian. This, as well as
being of great importance in itself, marked the beginning of the return of a
part of the educated classes to a more than nominal membership of the Churc=
h.
It was on the basis of the teaching of the Holy Fathers that Kireevsky
determined to build a philosophy that would engage with the problems felt by
the Russian intelligentsia of his day and provide them with true enlightenm=
ent.
A very important
element in this philosophy would be a correct “placing” of Russ=
ia
in relation to Western Europe.
According to
Kireevsky, “three elements lie at the foundation of European [i.e.
Western European] education: Roman Christianity, the world of the uneducated
barbarians who destroyed the [western] Roman empire, and the classical worl=
d of
ancient paganism.
“This clas=
sical
world of ancient paganism, which did not enter into the inheritance of Russ=
ia,
essentially constitutes the triumph of the formal reason of man over everyt=
hing
that is inside and within him – pure, naked reason, based on itself,
recognizing nothing higher than or outside itself and appearing in two forms
– the form of formal abstraction and the form of abstract sensuality.
Classicism’s influence on European education had to correspond to this
same character.
“Whether i=
t was
because Christians in the West gave themselves up unlawfully to the influen=
ce
of the classical world, or because heresy accidentally united itself with
paganism, the Roman Church differs in its deviation from the Eastern only in
that same triumph of rationalism over Tradition, of external ratiocination =
over
inner spiritual reason. Thus it was in consequence of this external syllogi=
sm
drawn out of the concept of the Divine equality of the Father and the Son [=
the Filioque]
that the dogma of the Trinity was changed in opposition to spiritual sense =
and
Tradition. Similarly, in consequence of another syllogism, the pope became =
the
head of the Church in place of Jesus Christ. They tried to demonstrate the
existence of God with a syllogism; the whole unity of the faith rested on
syllogistic scholasticism; the Inquisition, Jesuitism – in a word, all
the particularities of Catholicism, developed by virtue of the same formal
process of reason, so that Protestantism itself, which the Catholics reproa=
ch for
its rationalism, proceeded directly from the rationalism of CatholicismR=
30;
“Thus
rationalism was both an extra element in the education of Europe at the
beginning and is now an exclusive characteristic of the European enlightenm=
ent
and way of life. This will be still clearer if we compare the basic princip=
les
of the public and private way of life of the West with the basic principles=
of
the same public and private way of life which, if it had not developed
completely, was at least clearly indicated in old Russia, when she was under
the direct influence of pure Christianity, without any admixture from the p=
agan
world.
“The whole
private and public way of life of the West is founded on the concept of
individual, separate independence, which presupposes individual isolation.
Hence the sacredness of formal relationships; the sacredness of property and
conditional decrees is more important than the personality. Every individua=
l is
a private person; a knight, prince or city within his or its rights =
is
an autocratic, unlimited personage that gives laws to itself. The first ste=
p of
each personage into society is to surround himself with a fortress from the
depths of which he enters into negotiations with others and other independe=
nt
powers.
“… I=
was
speaking about the difference between enlightenment in Russia and in the We=
st.
Our educative principle consisted in our Church. There, however, together w=
ith
Christianity, the still fruitful remnants of the ancient pagan world contin=
ued
to act on the development of enlightenment. The very Christianity of the We=
st,
in separation from the Universal Church, accepted into itself the seeds of =
that
principle which constituted the general colouring of the whole development =
of
Greco-Roman culture: the principle of rationalism. For that reason the
character of European education differs by virtue of an excess of rationali=
sm.
“However, =
this
excess appeared only later, when logical development had already overwhelmed
Christianity, so to speak. But at the beginning rationalism, as I said,
appeared only in embryo. The Roman Church separated from the Eastern becaus=
e it
changed certain dogmas existing in the Tradition of the whole of
Christianity into others by deduction. She spread other dogmas by me=
ans
of the same logical process, again in opposition to Tradition and the spiri=
t of
the Universal Church. Thus a logical belief lay at the very lowest base of
Catholicism. But the first action of rationalism was limited to this at the
beginning. The inner and outer construction of the Church, which had been
completed earlier in another spirit, continued to exist without obvious cha=
nges
until the whole unity of the ecclesiastical teaching passed into the
consciousness of the thinking part of the clergy. This was completed in the=
philosophy
of scholasticism, which, by reason of the logical principle at the very
foundation of the Church, could not reconcile the contradictions of faith a=
nd
reason in any other way than by means of syllogism, which thereby became the
first condition of every belief. At first, naturally, this same syllogism t=
ried
to demonstrate the truth of faith against reason and subdue reason to faith=
by
means of rational arguments. But this faith, logically proved and logically
opposed to reason, was no longer a living, but a formal faith, not faith as
such, but only the logical rejection of reason. Therefore during this perio=
d of
the scholastic development of Catholicism, precisely by reason of its
rationality, the Western church becomes an enemy of reason, its oppressive,
murderous, desperate enemy. But, taken to its extreme, as the continuation =
of
this same logical process, this absolute annihilation of reason produced the
well-known opposite effect, the consequences of which constitute the charac=
ter
of the present enlightenment. That is what I meant when I spoke of the rati=
onal
element of Catholicism.
“Christian=
ity in
the East knew neither this struggle of faith against reason, nor this trium=
ph
of reason over faith. Therefore its influence on enlightenment was dissimil=
ar
to that of Catholicism.
“When exam=
ining
the social construction of old Russia, we find many differences from the We=
st,
and first of all: the formation of society into so-called mirs
[communes]. Private, personal idiosyncracy, the basis of western developmen=
t,
was as little known among us as was social autocracy. A man belonged to the=
mir,
and the mir to him. Agricultural property, the fount of personal rig=
hts
in the West, belonged with us to society. A person had the rights of owners=
hip
to the extent that entered into the membership of society.
“But this
society was not autonomous and could not order itself, or itself acquire la=
ws
for itself, because it was not separated from other similar communities that
were ruled by uniform custom. The innumerable multitude of these small
communes, which constituted Russia, was all covered with a net of churches,
monasteries and the remote dwellings of hermits, whence there spread everyw=
here
identical concepts of the relationship between social matters and personal
matters. These concepts little by little were bound to pass over into a gen=
eral
conviction, conviction – into custom, whose place was taken by law, w=
hich
established throughout the whole space of the lands subject to our Church o=
ne
thought, one point of view, one aim, one order of life. This universal
uniformity of custom was probably one of the reasons for its amazing streng=
th,
which has preserved its living remnants even to our time, in spite of all t=
he
opposition of destructive influences which, in the course of two hundred ye=
ars,
strove to introduce new principles in their place.
“As a resu=
lt of
these strong, uniform and universal customs, it was impossible for there to=
be
any change in the social order that was not in agreement with the order of =
the
whole. Every person’s family relationships were defined, first of all=
, by
his birth; but in the same predetermined order the family was subject to the
commune, and the wider commune to the assembly, the assembly to the vech=
e,
and so on, whence all the private circles came together in one centre, in o=
ne
Orthodox Church. No personal reasoning, no artificial agreement could found=
any
new order, think up new rights and privileges. Even the very word right<=
/i>
was unknown among us in its western sense, but signified only justice,
righteousness. Therefore no power could be given to any person or class, nor
could any right be accorded, for righteousness and justice cannot be sold or
taken, but exist in themselves independently of conditional relationships. =
In
the West, by contrast, all social relationship are founded on convention=
or strive to attain this artificial basis. Outside convention there =
are
no correct relationships, but only arbitrariness, which in the governing cl=
ass
is called autonomy, in the governed – freedom. But in b=
oth
the one and the other case this arbitrariness demonstrates not the developm=
ent
of the inner life, but the development of the external, formal life. All so=
cial
forces, interests and rights exist there in separation, each in itself, and
they are united not by a normal law, but either accidentally or by an
artificial agreement. In the first case material force triumphs, in the sec=
ond
– the sum of individual reasonings. But material force, material
dominance, a material majority, the sum of individual reasonings in essence
constitute one principle only at different moments of their development.
Therefore the social contract is not the invention of the
encyclopaedists, but a real ideal to which all the western societies strove
unconsciously, and now consciously, under the influence of the rational
element, which outweighs the Christian element.”[668]
“Private a=
nd
social life in the West,’ Kireevsky wrote, ‘are based on the
concept of an individual and separate independence that presupposes the
isolation of the individual. Hence the external formal relations of private
property and all types of legal conventions are sacred and of greater
importance than human beings”.
“Only one
serious thing was left to man, and that was industry. For him the reality of
being survived only in his physical person. Industry rules the world without
faith or poetry. In our times it unites and divides people. It determines
one’s fatherland, it delineates classes, it lies at the base of state
structures, it moves nations, it declares war, makes peace, changes more=
s,
gives direction to science, and determines the character of culture. Men bow
down before it and erect temples to it. It is the real deity in which people
sincerely believe and to which they submit. Unselfish activity has become
inconceivable; it has acquires the same significance in the contemporary wo=
rld
as chivalry had in the time of Cervantes.”[669]
This long and tr=
agic
development had its roots, according to Kireevsky, in the falling away of t=
he
Roman Church. "In the ninth century the western Church showed within
itself the inevitable seed of the Reformation, which placed this same Church
before the judgement seat of the same logical reason which the Roman Church=
had
itself exalted... A thinking man could already see Luther behind Pope Nicol=
as I
just as… a thinking man of the 16th century could foresee behind Luth=
er
the coming of 19th century liberal Protestantism..."[670]
According to
Kireevsky, just as, in a marriage, separation or divorce takes place when o=
ne
partner asserts his or her self against the other, so in the Church schisms=
and
heresies take place when one party asserts itself over against Catholic
unity. In the early, undivided
Church “each patriarchate, each tribe, each country in the Christian
world preserved its own characteristic features, while at the same time
participating in the common unity of the whole Church.”[671]
A patriarchate or
country fell away from that unity only if it introduced heresy, that is, a
teaching contrary to the Catholic understanding of the Church. The Roman
patriarchate fell away from the Unity and Catholicity of the Church through=
an
unbalanced, self-willed development of its own particular strength, the log=
ical
development of concepts, by iintroducing the Filioque into the Creed=
in
defiance of the theological consciousness of the Church as a whole. But it =
fell
away from that Unity and Catholicity in another way, by preaching a heresy =
about
Unity and Catholicity. For the Popes taught that the Church, in orde=
r to
be Catholic, must be first and above all Roman – and
“Roman” not in the sense employed by the Greeks when they called
themselves Roman, that is, belonging to the Christian Roman Empire and
including both Italians and Greeks and people of many nationalities. The Po=
pes
now understood “Rome”, “the Roman Church” and
“the Roman Faith” in a different, particularist, anti-Catholic
sense – that is, “Roman” as opposed to “Greek”=
;,
“the Roman Church” as opposed to “the Greek Church”=
, “the
Roman Faith” as opposed to, and something different from and inherent=
ly
superior to, “the Greek Church”. From this time that the Roman
Church ceased to be a part of the Catholic Church, having trampled on the d=
ogma
of Catholicity. Instead she became the anti-Catholic, or Romanist, or Latin=
, or
Papist church.
“Christian=
ity
penetrated the minds of the western peoples through the teaching of the Rom=
an
Church alone – in Russia it was kindled on the candle-stands of the w=
hole
Orthodox Church; theology in the West acquired a ratiocinative-abstract
character – in the Orthodox world it preserved an inner wholeness of
spirit; there there was a division in the powers of the reason – here=
a
striving for their living unity; there: the movement of the mind towards the
truth by means of a logical chain of concepts – here: a striving for =
it
by means of an inner exaltation of self-consciousness towards wholeness of
heart and concentration of reason; there: a searching for external, dead un=
ity
– here: a striving for inner, living unity; there the Church was conf=
used
with the State, uniting spiritual power with secular power and pouring
ecclesiastical and worldly significance into one institution of a mixed
character – in Russia it remained unmixed with worldly aims and
institution; there: scholastic and juridical universities – in ancient
Russia: prayer-filled monasteries concentrating higher knowledge in themsel=
ves;
there: a rationalist and scholastic study of the higher truths – here=
: a
striving for their living and integral assimilation; there: a mutual growing
together of pagan and Christian education – here: a constant striving=
for
the purification of truth; there: statehood arising out of forcible conquest
– here: out of the natural development of the people’s everyday
life, penetrated by the unity of its basic conviction; there: a hostile
walling-off of classes – in ancient Russia their unanimous union while
preserving natural differences; there: the artificial connection of
knights’ castles with what belonged to them constituted separate stat=
es
– here: the agreement of the whole land spiritually expresses its
undivided unity; there: agrarian property is the first basis of civil
relationships – here: property is only an accidental expression of pe=
rsonal
relationships; there: formal-logical legality – here: legality procee=
ding
from everyday life; there: the inclination of law towards external justice
– here: preference for inner justice; there: jurisprudence strives
towards a logical codex – here: instead of an external connectedness =
of
form with form, it seeks the inner connection of lawful conviction with
convictions of faith and everyday life; there improvements were always
accomplished by violent changes – here by a harmonious, natural growt=
h;
there: the agitation of the party spirit – here: the unshakeability of
basic conviction; there: the pursuit of fashion – here: constancy of
everyday life; there: the instability of personal self-rule – here: t=
he
strength of familial and social links; there: the foppishness of luxury and=
the
artificiality of life – here: the simplicity of vital needs and the
exuberance of moral courage; there: tender dreaminess – here: the hea=
lthy
integrity of rational forces; there: inner anxiety of spirit accompanied by
rational conviction of one’s moral perfection – among the Russi=
ans:
profound quietness and the calm of inner self-consciousness combined with
constant lack of trust of oneself and the unlimited demands of moral perfec=
tion
– in a word, there: disunity of spirit, disunity of thoughts, disunit=
y of
sciences, disunity of state, disunity of classes, disunity of society, disu=
nity
of family rights and obligations, disunity of the whole unity and of all the
separate forms of human existence, social and personal – in Russia, by
contrast, mainly a striving for integrity of everyday existence both inner =
and
outer, social and personal, speculative and practical, aesthetic and moral.
Therefore if what we have said above is just, disunity and integr=
ity,
rationalism [rassudochnost’] and reason [razu=
mnost’]
will be the final expression of West European and Russian education.”=
[672]
We may wonder wh=
ether
the contrast between East and West has been drawn too sharply, too tidily h=
ere.
But there can be no doubt that Kireevsky has unerringly pointed to the main
lines of bifurcation between the development of the the Orthodox East and t=
he
Catholic-Protestant West. “Having himself been a son of the West and =
gone
to study with the most advanced philosophers,” writes Fr. Seraphim Ro=
se, ‘Kireyevsky
was thoroughly penetrated with the Western spirit and then became thoroughly
converted to Orthodoxy. Therefore he saw that these two things cannot be put
together. He wanted to find out why they were different and what was the an=
swer
in one’s soul, what one had to choose.”[673]
Russia and Europe: (5) Dostoyevsky
The young writer
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky had, like Gogol, been a protég&eacut=
e;
of Belinsky. But, again like Gogol, he had broken with Belinsky, because of=
the
latter’s atheism and readiness to subordinate art to propaganda. Howe=
ver,
he did not decisively cast off his socialist acquaintances, and his return =
to
conscious Christianity was correspondingly tortuous, slow and punctuated by
harsh lessons from life.
Dostoyevsky̵=
7;s
Christian critique of socialism, though not yet fully articulate in the 184=
0s,
had already begun to reveal itself in his relations with Belinsky, of whom =
he
wrote much later: “Treasuring above all reason, science and realism, =
at
the same time he comprehended more keenly than anyone that reason, science =
and
realism alone can merely produce the ant’s nest, and not social
‘harmony’ within which man can organize his life. He knew that
moral principles are the basis of all things. He believed, to the degree of=
delusion
and without any reflex, in the new moral foundations of socialism (which,
however, up to the present have revealed nothing but abominable perversions=
of
nature and common sense). Here was nothing but rapture. Still, as a sociali=
st
he had to destroy Christianity in the first place. He knew that the revolut=
ion
must necessarily begin with atheism. He had to dethrone that religion whence
the moral foundations of the society rejected by him had sprung up. Family,
property, personal moral responsibility – these he denied radically. =
(I
may observe that, even as Herzen, he was also a good husband and father.)
Doubtless, he understood that by denying the moral responsibility of man, he
thereby denied also his freedom; yet, he believed with all his being (much =
more
blindly than Herzen, who, at the end, it seems, began to doubt) that social=
ism
not only does not destroy the freedom of man, but, on the contrary, restore=
s it
in a form of unheard-of majesty, only on a new and adamantine foundation.
“At this
juncture, however, there remained the radiant personality of Christ Himself=
to
contend with, which was the most difficult problem. As a socialist, he was =
duty
bound to destroy the teaching of Christ, to call it fallacious and ignorant
philanthropy, doomed by modern science and economic tenets. Even so, there
remained the beatific image of the God-man, its moral inaccessibility, its
wonderful and miraculous beauty. But in his incessant, unquenchable transpo=
rt,
Belinsky did not stop even before this insurmountable obstacle, as did Rena=
n,
who proclaimed in his Vie de Jésus – a book permeated w=
ith
incredulity – that Christ nevertheless is the ideal of human beauty, =
an
inaccessible type which cannot be repeated even in the future.
“’Bu=
t do
you know,’ he screamed one evening (sometimes in a state of great
excitement he used to scream), ‘do you know that it is impossible to
charge man with sins, to burden him with debts and turning the other cheek,
when society is organized so meanly that man cannot help but perpetrate vil=
lainies;
when, economically, he has been brought to villainy, and that it is silly a=
nd
cruel to demand from man that which, by the very laws of nature, he is impo=
tent
to perform even if he wished to…?’
“That even=
ing we
were not alone: there was present one of Belinsky’s friends whom he
respected very much and obeyed in many ways. Also present was an author, qu=
ite
young, who later gained prominence in literature [Dostoyevsky].
“’I =
am
even touched to look at him,’ said Belinsky, suddenly interrupting his
furious exclamations, turning to his friend and pointing at me. ‘Every
time I mention Christ his face changes expression, as if he were ready to s=
tart
weeping… But, believe me, naïve man,’ he jumped at me agai=
n,
‘believe me that your Christ, if He were born in our time, would be a
most imperceptible and ordinary man; in the presence of contemporary science
and contemporary propellers of mankind, He would be effaced!’”[674]
The essence of “The Parable of the Grand Inquisitor” in that scene, with Belin= sky in the role of Inquisitor and Dostoyevsky - in that of the silent Christ. <= o:p>
However, Dostoye=
vsky
was not yet ready to break decisively with the socialist camp. As he wrote:
“All these new ideas of those days carried to us, in Petersburg, a gr=
eat
appeal; they seemed holy in the highest degree and moral, and – most
important of all – cosmopolitan, the future law of all mankind in its
totality. Even long before the Paris revolution of ’48 we fell under =
the
fascinating influence of these ideas. Already in ’46 I had been initi=
ated
by Belinsky into the whole truth of that future ‘regenerated
world’ and into the whole holiness of the forthcoming communist
society. All these convictions about the immorality of the very foundations
(Christian) of modern society, the immorality of religion, family, right of
property; all these ideas about the elimination of nationalities in the nam=
e of
universal brotherhood of men, about the contempt for one’s native
country, as an obstacle to universal progress, and so on, and so forth R=
11;
all these constituted such influences as we were unable to overcome and whi=
ch,
contrarywise, swayed our hearts and minds in the name of some magnanimity. =
At
any rate, the theme seemed lofty and far above the level of the then prevai=
ling
conceptions, and precisely this was tempting…
“The human=
mind,
once having rejected Christ, may attain extraordinary results. This is an
axiom. Europe, in the persons of her highest intellectual representatives,
renounces Christ, while we, as is known, are obligated to imitate
Europe…”[675]
The revolution o=
f 1848
in Europe, writes V.F. Ivanov, “gave wings of hope to all the
antichristian and destructive forces.
“The profo=
und
thinker V.A. Zhukovsky, in January, 1848, in an excerpt from a letter, W=
hat
is Going to Happen, prophetically foretold the bloody chaos of which we=
are
the witnesses in our own days.
“’We
live,’ wrote Zhukovsky, ‘on the crater of a volcano which not l=
ong
ago was giving out fire, which calmed down and which is now again preparing=
to
throw up. Its first lava flow has not yet cooled, and already in its depths=
a
new one is bubbling, and the thunder of stones flying out of the abyss is
announcing that it will soon pour out. One revolution has ended, and another
stepping on its toes, and what is remarkable is that the course of the last=
is
observing the same order as did the first, in spite of the difference in th=
eir
characters. The two are similar in their first manifestations, and now, as
then, they are beginning with a shaking of the main foundation of order:
religion. But now they are doing it in a bolder way and on a broader scale.
Then they attack the faith obliquely, preaching tolerance, but now they are
directly attacking every faith and blatantly preaching atheism; then they w=
ere
secretly undermining Christianity, apparently arming themselves against the
abuses of Church authorities, but now they are yelling from the roots that =
both
Christianity and the Church and the Church authorities and every authority =
is
nothing other than abuse. What is the aim of the present reformers? –=
I
am speaking about those who sincerely desire what is better,
sincerely believe in the reality and beneficence of their speculations R=
11;
what is the aim of the present reformers?, who are entering on the same path
which their predecessors trod, whose end we saw with shuddering, knowing th=
at
the desired improvement would never be found there. What is the aim of the
present reformers? They themselves do not clearly see it. It is very probab=
le
that many of them are deceiving themselves, and, while going forward with
banners on which there shine the words of our age: forward, freedom,
equality, humanity, they themselves are sure that their path leads stra=
ight
to the promised land. And perhaps it is fated for them, as for many others =
of
their predecessors, to shudder on the edge or on the bottom of this abyss,
which will soon open up under their feet.
“’Be=
hind
these preachers of education and progress, who are acting openly, ot=
hers
are acting in secret, who are not blinded, who have a practical aim
which they see clearly in front of them: for them it is no longer a matter =
of
political transformation, or of the destruction of privileges and age-old
historical formations (that was already accomplished in the first revolutio=
n),
but simply of the annihilation of the difference between yours and mine<=
/i>,
or, more correctly, of turning yours into mine.’”[676]
The first
revolutionary movement in Russia after 1848 was the abortive
“Petrashevtsy” rebellion of 1849, named after its leader, Micha=
el
Petrashevsky. He expressed his “realist” views with typically
Russian explicitness: "[Naturalism] means a science which holds that by
thought alone, without the help of tradition, revelation, or divine
intervention, man can achieve in real life a state of permanent happiness
through the total and independent development of all his natural faculties.=
In
the lower phases of its evolution, naturalism considers the appearance of t=
he
divine element in positive religions to be a falsehood, the result of human
rather than divine action. In its further evolution, this science - having
absorbed pantheism and materialism - conceives divinity as the supreme and
all-embracing expression of human understanding, moves towards atheism, and
finally becomes transformed into anthropotheism - the science that proclaims
that the only supreme being is man himself as a part of nature. At this sta=
ge
of its rational evolution, naturalism considers the universal fact of the
recognition of God in positive religions to be a result of man's deificatio=
n of
his own personality and the universal laws of his intellect; it considers a=
ll
religions that reflected the historical evolution of mankind to be a gradual
preparation for anthropotheism, or - in other words - total self-knowledge =
and
awareness of the vital laws of nature."[677]
The Petrashevtsy
especially admired Fourier; and at a meeting on his birthday D.D. Akhsharum=
ov
declared: “We venerate his memory because he showed us the path we mu=
st
follow, he revealed the source of wealth, of happiness. Today is the first
banquet of the Fourierists in Russia, and we are all here: ten people, not =
much
more! Everything begins from something small and grows into something big. =
Our
aim is to destroy the capitals and cities and use all their materials for o=
ther
buildings, and turn the whole of this life of torments, woes, poverty and s=
hame
into a life that is luxurious, elegant, full of joy, wealth and happiness, =
and
cover the whole poor land with palaces and fruits and redecorate them in
flowers. We here, in our country, will begin its transfiguration, and the w=
hole
land will finish it. Soon the human race will be delivered from intolerable
sufferings…”[678]
One member of the
circle, the proud, silent and handsome Nikolai Speshnev, considered all
distinctions between beauty and ugliness, good and evil to be “a matt=
er
of taste”. He did not believe in the transformation of Russia from the
top, but in a socialist revolution from below, to which end only verbal pro=
paganda
was necessary. “I intend to use it, without the slightest shame or
conscience, to propagandise socialism, atheism, terrorism, and all that is
good.”[679]
Speshnev formed =
his
own “Russian Society”, which was joined by Dostoyevsky. He call=
ed
him his “Mephistopheles”, and was fascinated by him. But he was
never wholly convinced by him, and continued to believe in Christ…
However, in
April, 1849 the Petrashevtsy, including Dostoyevsky, were arrested, impriso=
ned,
and then, after a mock-execution, sent to four years’ hard labour in
Siberia. The experience – recounted in The House of the Dead &=
#8211;
brought Dostoyevsky to repentance.
As he wrote to h=
is
brother: “In my absolute spiritual solitude [in the Peter and Paul
fortress], I re-examined the whole of my former life. I scrutinized every
minute detail. I thought very carefully about my past. Alone as I was, I ju=
dged
myself harshly, without mercy. Sometimes I even thanked my fate because it =
had
sent me into solitude, for without it, this new judgement of myself would n=
ever
have happened…”[680] As=
St.
Ambrose of Optina said of him in the 1870s: “This is a man who
repents!”[681]
Then, in Siberia=
, by
being “personally classed with villains”, he came to know the
Russian people as they really were for the first time. And through them, as=
he
wrote later, “I again received into my soul Christ, Who had been reve=
aled
to me in my parents’ home and Whom I was about to lose when, on my pa=
rt,
I transformed myself into a ‘European liberal’.”[682]
“The moral=
idea
is Christ,” wrote Dostoyevsky. “In the West, Christ has been
distorted and diminished. It is the kingdom of the Antichrist. We have
Orthodoxy. As a consequence, we are the bearers of a clear understanding of
Christ and a new idea for the resurrection of the world… If faith and
Orthodoxy were shaken in the people, then they would begin to
disintegrate… The whole matter lies in the question: can one believe,
being civilized, that is, a European, that is, believe absolutely in the
Divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ? (for all faith consists in
this)… You see: either everything is contained in faith or nothing is=
: we
recognize the importance of the world through Orthodoxy. And the whole ques=
tion
is: can one believe in Orthodoxy? If one can, then everything is saved: if =
not,
then better to burn… But if Orthodoxy is impossible for the enlighten=
ed
man, then… all this is hocus-pocus and Russia’s whole strength =
is
provisional… It is possible to believe seriously and in earnest. Here=
is everything,
the burden of life for the Russian people and their entire mission and
existence to come…”[683]
And so Dostoyevs=
ky
became, after Pushkin and Gogol, the third great Russian writer to be rescu=
ed
from atheism and revolution and converted to Christ…
Kireevsky on Autocracy
We have discussed
Orthodoxy and Nationhood. But we have said little about the central element=
in
the tripartite formula of Nicholas I’s reign: Autocracy, which was co=
ming
more and more under attack from the westernizers as the century wore on. Wh=
at
did the Slavophiles have to say about this?
If we exclude
Kireevsky, the answer is: not much. As Lev Tikhomirov writes, “the
greatest merit of the Slavophiles consisted not so much in their working ou=
t of
a political teaching, as in establishing the social and ps=
ychological
bases of public life.”[684] Th=
ey
were not opposed to the autocracy; but the emphasis of their thought,
especially Khomiakov’s, was on the people rather than on the autocrac=
y.[685] Th=
us
Khomiakov wrote: “The people transferred to the Emperor all the power
with which it itself was endowed in all its forms. The sovereign became the
head of the people in Church matters as well as in matters of State
administration. The people could not transfer to its Emperor rights that it=
did
not itself have. It had from the beginning a voice in the election of its
bishops, and this voice it could transfer to its Emperor. It had the right,=
or
more precisely the obligation to watch that the decisions of its pastors and
their councils were carried out – this right it could entrust to its
chosen one and his successors. It had the right to defend its faith against
every hostile attack upon it, - this right it could also transfer to its
Sovereign. But the Church people did not have any power in questions of
dogmatic teaching, and general Church piety – and for that reason it
could not transfer such power to its Emperor.”
Here again we se=
e the
myth of an early pact between the Tsar and the people which Karamzin believ=
ed
in, and which Tikhomirov criticised (see above). For this was what the
Slavophiles were above all concerned to emphasize: that the Tsar is not
separated from his people, that Tsar and people form one harmonious whole a=
nd
have a single ideal.
Khomiakov was al=
so
concerned to emphasize that it was not the Tsar who ruled the Russian Ortho=
dox
Church, as the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire might have suggested.
“’It is true,’ he says, ‘the expression “the =
head
of the local church” has been used in the Laws of the Empire, but in a
totally different sense than it is interpreted in other countries’ (I=
I,
351). The Russian Emperor has no rights of priesthood, he has no claims to
infallibility or ‘to any authority in matters of faith or even of chu=
rch
discipline’. He signs the decisions of the Holy Synod, but this right=
of
proclaiming laws and putting them into execution is not the same as the rig=
ht
to formulate ecclesiastical laws. The Tsar has influence with regard to the
appointment of bishops and members of the Synod, but it should be observed =
that
such dependence upon secular power is frequently met with in many Catholic
countries as well. In some of the Protestant states it is even greater (II,
36-38, 208).”[686]
“The whole
pathos of Slavophilism,” writes Bishop Dionysius (Alferov), “la=
y in
‘sobornost’’, ‘zemstvo’, in
‘the popular character of the monarchy, and not its service as ‘=
;he
who restrains [the coming of the Antichrist]’. Byzantium, in which there were neither Zemskie Sobory nor
self-government of the land, elicited only irritation in them and was used =
by
them to put in the shade the free ‘Slavic element’. The Russian
Tsar for the Slavophiles was first of all ‘the people’s
Tsar’, and not the Tsar of the Third Rome. According to the witness of
Konstantin Leontiev, Tsar Nicholas Pavlovich himself noticed that under the
Slavophiles’ Russian caftan there stuck out the trousers of the most
vulgar European democracy and liberalism (K. Leontiev, ‘Slavophilism =
in
theory and Slavophilism in life’).”[687]
This estimate is
probably least true in relation to Kireevsky, although of all the Slavophil=
es
he had the most problems with the Tsarist censor. At one point he was requi=
red
to give an assurance to the minister of popular enlightenment that in his
thinking he did not “separate the Tsar from Russia”. Offended by
the very suggestion, Kireevsky proceeded to give one of the earliest, and, =
with
Metropolitan Philaret’s writings on the subject, one of the best
justifications of the Autocracy in post-Petrine Russian history.
He began from th=
e fact
that “the Russian man loves his Tsar. This reality cannot be doubted,
because everyone can see and feel it. But love for the Tsar, like every lov=
e,
can be true and false, good and bad – I am not speaking about feigned
love. False love is that which loves in the Tsar only one’s advantage;
this love is base, harmful and, in dangerous moments, can turn to treachery.
True love for the Tsar is united in one indivisible feeling with love for t=
he
Fatherland, for lawfulness and for the Holy Orthodox Church. Therefore this=
love
can be magnanimous. And how can one separate in this matter love for the Ts=
ar
from the law, the Fatherland and the Church? The law is the will of the Tsa=
r,
proclaimed before the whole people; the Fatherland is the best love of his
heart; the Holy Orthodox Church is his highest link with the people, it is =
the
most essential basis of his power, the reason for the people’s trust =
in
him, the combination of his conscience with the Fatherland, the living junc=
tion
of the mutual sympathy of the Tsar and the people, the basis of their common
prosperity, the source of the blessing of God on him and on the Fatherland.=
“But to lo=
ve the
Tsar separately from Russia means to love an external force, a chance power,
but not the Russian Tsar: that is how the Old Believer schismatics and Balts
love him, who were ready to serve Napoleon with the same devotion when they
considered him stronger than Alexander. To love the Tsar and not to venerate
the laws, or to break the laws given or confirmed by him under the cover of=
his
trust, under the protection of his power, is to be his enemy under the mask=
of
zeal, it is to undermine his might at the root, to destroy the
Fatherland’s love for him, to separate the people’s concept of =
him
from their concept of justice, order and general well-being – in a wo=
rd,
it is to separate the Tsar in the heart of the people from the very reasons=
for
which Russia wishes to have a Tsar, from those good things in the hope of w=
hich
she so highly venerates him. Finally, to love him without any relation to t=
he
Holy Church as a powerful Tsar, but not as the Orthodox Tsar, is to think t=
hat
his rule is not the service of God and His Holy Church, but only the rule of
the State for secular aims; it is to think that the advantage of the State =
can
be separated from the advantage of Orthodoxy, or even that the Orthodox Chu=
rch
is a means, and not the end of the people’s existence as a whole, that
the Holy Church can be sometimes a hindrance and at other times a useful
instrument for the Tsar’s power. This is the love of a slave, and not
that of a faithful subject; it is Austrian love, not Russian; this love for=
the
Tsar is treason before Russia, and for the Tsar himself it is profoundly
harmful, even if sometimes seems convenient. Every counsel he receives from
such a love bears within it a secret poison that eats away at the very livi=
ng
links that bind him with the Fatherland. For Orthodoxy is the soul of Russi=
a,
the root of the whole of her moral existence, the source of her might and
strength, the standard gathering all the different kinds of feelings of her
people into one stronghold, the earnest of all her hopes for the future, the
treasury of the best memories of the past, her ruling object of worship, her
heartfelt love. The people venerates the Tsar as the Church’s support;
and is so boundlessly devoted to him because it does not separate the Church
from the Fatherland. All its trust in the Tsar is based on feeling for the
Church. It ses in him a faithful director in State affairs only because it =
knows
that he is a brother in the Church, who together with it serves her as the
sincere son of the same mother and therefore can be a reliable shield of her
external prosperity and independence…
“He who ha=
s not
despaired of the destiny of his Fatherland cannot separate love for it from
sincere devotion to Orthodoxy. And he who is Orthodox in his convictions ca=
nnot
not love Russia, as the God-chosen vessel of His Holy Church on earth. Fait=
h in
the Church of God and love for Orthodox Russia are neither divided nor
distinguished in the soul of the true Russian. Therefore a man holding to
another confession cannot love the Russian Tsar except with a love that is
harmful for the Tsar and for Russia, a love whose influence of necessity mu=
st
strive to destroy precisely that which constitutes the very first condition=
of
the mutual love of the Tsar and Russia, the basis of his correct and benefi=
cent
rule and the condition of her correct and beneficent construction.
“Therefore=
to
wish that the Russian government should cease to have the spirit and bear t=
he
character of an Orthodox government, but be completely indifferent to the
confessions, accepting the spirit of so-called common Christianity, which d=
oes
not belong to any particular Church and was thought up recently by some
unbelieving philosophers and half-believing Protestants – to wish for
this would signify for the present time the tearing up of all bonds of love=
and
trust between the government and the people, and for the future, - that is,=
if
the government were to hide its indifference to Orthodoxy until it educates=
the
people in the same coldness to its Church, - it would produce the complete
destruction of the whole fortress of Russia and the annihilation of the who=
le
of her world significance. For for him who knows Russia and her Orthodox Fa=
ith,
there can be no doubt that she grew up on it and became strong by it, since=
by
it alone is she strong and prosperous.”[688]
In a critical re=
view
of an article by the Protestant Pastor Wiener, who was defending the princi=
ple
of complete separation of Church and State and the most complete tolerarnce,
Kireevsky wrote: “The author says very justly that in most states whe=
re
there is a dominant religion, the government uses it as a means for its own
private ends and under the excuse of protecting it oppresses it. But this
happens not because there is a dominant faith in the state, but, on =
the
contrary, because the dominant faith of the people is not dominant in
the state apparatus. This unfortunate relationship takes place when, as a
consequence of some chance historical circumstances, the rift opens up betw=
een
the convictions of the people and of the government. Then the faith of the
people is used as a means, but not for long. One of three things must
unfailingly happen: either the people wavers in its faith and then the whol
state apparatus wavers, as we see in the West; or the government attains a
correct self-knowledge and sincerely converts to the faith of the people, a=
s we
hope; or the people sees that it is being deceived, as we fear.
“But what =
are
the normal, desirable relations between the Church and the State? The state
must not agree with the Church so as to search out and persecute heretics a=
nd
force them to believe (this is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and h=
as a
counter-productive effect, and harms the state itself almost as much as the
Church); but it must agree with the Church so as to place as the main purpo=
se
of its existence to be penetrated constantly, more and more, with the spiri=
t of
the Church and not only not look on the Church as a means to its own most
fitting existence, but, on the contrary, see in its own existence only a me=
ans
for the fullest and most fitting installation of the Church of God on earth=
.
“The State=
is a
construction of society having as its aim earthly, temporal life. The Churc=
h is
a construction of the same society having as its aim heavenly, eternal life=
. If
society understands its life in such a way that in it the temporal must ser=
ve
the eternal, the state apparatus of this society must also serve the Church.
But if society understands its life in such a way that in it earthly
relationships carry on by themselves, and spiritual relations by themselves,
then the state in such a society must be separated from the Church. But suc=
h a
society will consist not of Christians, but of unbelievers, or, at any rate=
, of
mixed faiths and convictions. Such a state cannot make claims to a harmonio=
us,
normal development. The whole of its dignity must be limited by a negati=
ve character.
But there where the people is bound inwardly, by identical convictions of
faith, there it has the right to wish and demand that both its external bon=
ds
– familial, social and state – should be in agreement with its
religious inspirations, and that its government should be penetrated by the
same spirit. To act in hostility to this spirit means to act in hostility to
the people itself, even if these actions afford it some earthly
advantages.”[689]
Tiutchev
on Autocracy
Another Russian
supporter of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality who is sometimes classifi=
ed
as a Slavophile was the poet and diplomat F.I. Tiutchev. Already at the age=
of
19, in his poem, On Pushkin’s Ode on Freedom, he had rebuked h=
is
fellow-poet for disturbing the hearts of the citizens by his call to freedo=
m.[690] Wh=
ile
sharing the world-view of the Slavophiles, he took their sympathies and
antipathies to their logical conclusions. As Demetrius Merezhkovsky express=
ed
it, Tiutchev put bones into the soft body of Slavophilism, crossed its
‘t’s and dotted its ‘i’s…[691]
Thus he posed the
contrast between Russia and the West as a struggle between Christ and
Antichrist. “The supreme power of the people,” he wrote, “=
;is
in essence an antichristian idea.” Popular power and Tsarist power
mutually exclude each other. So it was not a question of two cultures living
side by side with each other and complementing each other in some sense. No=
: it
was a fight to the death between the Russian idea and the European idea,
between the Rome of the Papacy and the political and social structures it
evolved, and the Third Rome of the Orthodox Tsar…
Tiutchev believe=
d in the
Empire, whose soul was the Orthodox Church and whose body was the Slavic
race. More particularly, he believe in “the Great Greco-Russian Easte=
rn
Empire”, whose destiny was to unite the two halves of Europe under the
Russian Emperor, with some Austrian lands going to Russia. Then there would=
be
an Orthodox Pope in Rome and an Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople. The E=
mpire
was a principle, and indivisible. Western history had been a struggle betwe=
en
the schismatic Roman papacy and the usurper-empire of Charlemagne and his
successors. This struggle “ended for the one in the Reformation, i.e.=
the
denial of the Church, and for the other in the Revolution, i.e. the denial =
of
the Empire”. The struggle between Russia and Napoleon had been the
struggle “between the lawful Empire and the crowned Revolution”=
.[692]
As a diplomat Ti=
utchev
knew much about the threat both to the Orthodox autocracy posed by the 1848
revolution under the new Napoleon in Europe; and in April, 1848, just as th=
is
revolution was gathering pace, he wrote: “There have long been only t=
wo
real powers in Europe – the revolution and Russia. These two powers a=
re
now opposed to each other, and perhaps tomorrow they will enter into confli=
ct.
Between them there can be no negotiations, no treaties; the existence of the
one is equivalent to the death of the other! On the outcome of this struggle
that has arisen between them, the greatest struggle that the world has ever
seen, the whole political and religious future of mankind will depend for m=
any
centuries.
“The fact = of this rivalry is now being revealed everywhere. In spite of that, the understanding of our age, deadened by false wisdom, is such that the present generation, faced with a similar huge fact, is far from completely comprehending its true significance and has not evaluated its real causes.<= o:p>
“Up to now=
they
have sought for its explanation in the purely political sphere; they have t=
ried
to interpret by a distinction of concepts on the exclusively human plane. In
fact, the quarrel between the revolution and Russia depends on deeper cause=
s.
They can be defined in two words.
“Russia is=
first
of all the Christian Empire; the Russian people is Christian not only by vi=
rtue
of the Orthodoxy of its convictions, but also thanks to something more in t=
he
realm of feelings than convictions. It is Christian by virtue of that capac=
ity
for self-denial and self-sacrifice which constitutes as it were the basis of
her moral nature. The revolution is first of all the enemy of Christianity!
Antichristian feeling is the soul of the revolution: it is its special,
distinguishing feature. Those changes in form to which it has been subjecte=
d,
those slogans which it has adopted in turn, everything, even its violence a=
nd
crimes have been secondary and accidental. But the one thing in it that is =
not
accidental is precisely the antichristian feeling that inspires it, it is t=
hat
(it is impossible not to be convinced of this) that has acquired for it this
threatening dominance over the world. He who does not understand this is no
more than a blind man present at a spectacle that the world presents to him=
.
“The human=
I,
wishing to depend only on itself, not recognising and not accepting any oth=
er
law besides its own will – in a word, the human I, taking the place of
God, - does not, of course, constitute something new among men. But such ha=
s it
become when raised to the status of a political and social right, and when =
it
strives, by virtue of this right, to rule society. This is the new phenomen=
on
which acquired the name of the French revolution in 1789.
“Since that
time, in spite of all its permutations, the revolution has remained true to=
its
nature, and perhaps never in the whole course of this development has it
recognized itself as so of one piece, so sincerely antichristian as at the
present moment, when it has ascribed to itself the banner of Christianity:
‘brotherhood’. In the name of this we can even suppose that it =
has
attained its apogee. And truly, if we listen to those naively blasphemous b=
ig
words which have become, so to speak, the official language of the present =
age,
then will not everyone think that the new French republic was brought into =
the
world only in order to fulfil the Gospel law? It was precisely this calling
that the forces created by the revolution ascribed to themselves – wi=
th
the exception, however, of that change which the revolution considered it n=
ecessary
to produce, when it intended to replace the feeling of humility and
self-denial, which constitutes the basis of Christianity, with the spirit of
pride and haughtiness, free and voluntary good works with compulsory good
works. And instead of brotherhood preached and accepted in the name of God,=
it
intended to establish a brotherhood imposed by fear on the people-master. W=
ith
the exception of these differences, its dominance really promises to turn i=
nto
the Kingdom of Christ!
“And nobody
should be misled by this despicable good will which the new powers are show=
ing
to the Catholic Church and her servers. It is almost the most important sig=
n of
the real feeling of the revolution, and the surest proof of the position of
complete power that it has attained. And truly, why should the revolution s=
how
itself as hostile to the clergy and Christian priests who not only submit to
it, but accept and recognize it, who, in order to propitiate it, glorify all
its excesses and, without knowing it themselves, become partakers in all its
unrighteousness? If even similar behaviour were founded on calculation alon=
e,
this calculation would be apostasy; but if conviction is added to it, then =
this
is already more than apostasy.
“However, =
we can
foresee that there will be no lack of persecutions, too. On that day when
concessions have reached their extreme extent, the catholic church will
consider it necessary to display resistance, and it will turn out that she =
will
be able to display resistance only by going back to martyrdom. We can fully
rely on the revolution: it will remain in all respects faithful to itself a=
nd
consistent to the end!
“The Febru=
ary
explosion did the world a great service in overthrowing the pompous scaffol=
ding
of errors hiding reality. The less penetrating minds have probably now
understood that the history of Europe in the course of the last thirty three
years was nothing other than a continuous mystification. And indeed with wh=
at
inexorably light has the whole of this past, so recent and already so dista=
nt
from us, been lit up? Who, for example, will now not recognize what a laugh=
able
pretension was expressed in that wisdom of our age which naively imagined t=
hat
it had succeeded in suppressing the revolution with constitutional incantat=
ions,
muzzling its terrible energy by means of a formula of lawfulness? After all
that has happened, who can still doubt that from the moment when the
revolutionary principle penetrated into the blood of society, all these
concessions, all these reconciling formulas are nothing other than drugs wh=
ich
can, perhaps, put to sleep the sick man for a time, but are not able to hin=
der
the further development of the illness itself…”[693]
In spite of his
fervent support for the Autocracy, Tiutchev criticised the Tsarist impositi=
on
of censorship.
In 1857 he wrote:
“It is impossible to impose on minds an absolute and too prolonged
restriction and yoke without substantial harm for the social organism…=
;.
Even the authorities themselves in the course of time are unable to avoid t=
he
disadvantages of such a system. Around the sphere in which they are present
there is formed a desert and a hugh mental emptiness, and governmental thou=
ght,
not meeting from outside itself either control or guidance or even the
slightest point of support, ends by weakening under its own weight even bef=
ore
it destined to fall under the blows of events.”[694]
“Why,̶=
1; he
wrote to his daughter Anna in 1872, “can we oppose to harmful theories
and destructive tendencies nothing except material suppression? Into what h=
as
the true principle of conservatism been transformed with us? Why has our so=
ul
become so horribly stale? If the authorities because of an insufficiency of
principles and moral convictions passes to measures of material oppression,=
it
is thereby being turned into the most terrible helper of denial and
revolutionary overthrow, but it will begin to understand this only when the
evil is already incorrigible.”
This “libe=
ral
monarchism” was characteristic of all the early Slavophiles to a grea=
ter
or lesser extent. Thus “K. Aksakov,” writes N. Lossky, “w=
as
against the idea of limiting the autocratic power of the Tsar, but at the s=
ame
time he championed the spiritual freedom of the individual. On the
accession of Alexander II to the throne in 1855 Aksakov submitted to him,
through Count Bludov, a report ‘On the Inner Condition of Russia̵=
7;.
In it he reproached the Government for suppressing the people’s moral
freedom and following the path of despotism, which has led to the
nation’s moral degradation. He pointed out that this might popularise=
the
idea of political freedom and create a striving to attain it by revolutiona=
ry
means. To avoid these dangers he advised the Tsars to allow freedom of thou=
ght
and of speech and to re-establish the practice of calling Zemski Sobors.=
221;[695]
There was some t=
ruth
in this. The government’s oppressive measures could be undiscerning, =
and
its ability to develop a coherent philosophy to counteract the revolutionary
propaganda – limited.
This was due in =
large
part to the superficial Orthodoxy of the ruling circles, which Tiutchev
expressed as follows:
Not flesh, but spirit is today corrupt=
,
And man just pines away despairingly.<= o:p>
He strives for light, while sitting in=
the
dark,
And having found it, moans rebelliousl=
y.
From lack of faith dried up, in fire t=
ossed,
The unendurable he suffers now.
He knows right well his soul is lost, =
and
thirsts
For faith – but ask for it he kn=
ows
not how.
Ne’er will he say, with prayers =
and
tears combined,
However deep before the closed door his
grief:
“O let me in, my God, O hear my =
cry!
Lord, I believe! Help Thou mine
unbelief!”[696]<=
/span>
By
contrast, Tiutchev continued to believe in the Orthodoxy of the common peop=
le
and in the unique destiny of Russia, poor in her exterior aspect but rich in
inner faith and piety:
However, the suc=
cesses
of government measures are easily forgotten. We have already noted the
conversion of Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoyevksy. In 1849 the revolutionary
“Petrashevtsy” circle was arrested and after a fake execution i=
ts
leaders sent to Siberia. Among them was the young Dostoyevsky. Far from bei=
ng
embittered by the experience, he came back a fervent monarchist who devoted=
his
life to providing precisely that coherent philosophy of life which could
justify Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality in the eyes of the educated
classes.
Moreover, those =
who
were urging the government to remove censorship were not supported by the
leading churchmen of the age, and showed a dangerous naivety about the way =
in
which the forces of evil could – and, in the reign of Alexander II, d=
id
– exploit this freedom. This naivety manifested itself in a certain <=
i>anti-statism,
an attempt to bypass the state as being irrelevant to the deeper life of the
people, the “ancient Russian freedom” that existed in the peasa=
nt
communes and the Church. We see this particularly clearly, as Walicki write=
s,
“in the historical writings of Konstantin Aksakov. Republican liberty=
, he
argued, was political freedom, which presupposed the people’s active
participation in political affairs; ancient Russian freedom, on the other h=
and,
meant freedom from politics – the right to live according to
unwritten laws of faith and tradition, and the right to full realization in=
a
moral sphere on which the state would not impinge.
“This theo=
ry
rested on a distinction the Slavophiles made between two kinds of truth: the
‘inner’ and the ‘external’ truth. The inner truth i=
s in
the individual the voice of conscience, and in society the entire body of
values enshrined in religion, tradition, and customs – in a word, all
values that together form an inner unifying force and help to forge social
bonds based on shared moral convictions.&n=
bsp;
The external truth, on the other hand, is represented by law and the
state, which are essentially conventional, artificial, and
‘external’ – all the negative qualities Kireevsky and
Khomiakov ascribed to institutions and social bonds that had undergone a
rationalizing and formalizing process. Aksakov went even further than the o=
ther
Slavophiles in regarding all forms of legal and political relations =
as
inherently evil; at their opposite pole was the communal principle embodied=
in
the village commune, based (in Aksakov’s view) purely on truth and
unanimity and not on any legal guarantees or conditions and agreements
characteristic of a rational contract. For Aksakov the difference between
Russian and the West was that in Russia the state had not been raised to the
‘principle’ on which social organization was largely founded. W=
hen
the frailty of human nature and the demands of defense appeared to make
political organization necessary, Russians ‘called’ their rulers
from ‘beyond the sea’ in order to avoid doing injury to the
‘inner truth’ by evolving their own statehood; Russian tsars we=
re
given absolute powers so that the people might shun all contacts with the
‘external truth’ and all participation in affairs of state.
Relations between ‘land’ (that is the common people who lived by
the light of the inner truth) and state rested upon the principle of mutual
non-interference. Of its own free will the state consulted the people, who
presented their point of view at Land Assemblies but left the final decisio=
n in
the monarch’s hands. The people could be sure of complete freedom to =
live
and think as they pleased, while the monarch had complete freedom of action=
in
the political sphere. This relationship depended entirely on moral convicti=
ons
rather than legal guarantees, and it was this that constituted Russia’=
;s
superiority to Western Europe. ‘A guarantee is an evil,’ Aksakov
wrote. ‘Where it is necessary, good is absent; and life where good is
absent had better disintegrate than continue with the aid of evil.’
Aksakov conceded that there was often a wide gap between ideal and reality,=
but
ascribed this entirely to human imperfections. He strongly condemned rulers=
who
tried to interfere in the inner life of the ‘land’, but even in=
the
case of Ivan the Terrible, whose excessed he condemned, he would not allow =
that
the ‘land’ had the right to resistance and he praised its
long-suffering loyalty.”[698]
Although there i=
s some
truth in this account, it is exaggerated. Certainly, the “inner
truth” of Orthodoxy was more important than the “external
truth” of government and law; and it was true that the presence of th=
is
inner truth in Russia had prevented statehood becoming the “primary
principle” it had become in the West, where “inner truth”=
had
been lost. And yet the State had always taken a very active and essential r=
ole
in Russian life from the beginning in protecting and fostering the
internal freedom provided by the Orthodox way of life, and was accepted as =
such
with gratitude by the people.
Moreover, it was
inaccurate to represent the power of the Russian tsars as being
“external” to the true life of the people. For the tsars were
themselves Orthodox Christians anointed for their role by the Church and gu=
ided
in their decisions by the Church, the Holy Scriptures and the dogmas and
decrees of the Ecumenical and Local Councils.
Paradoxically, A= ksakov betrays the influence of precisely that western political tradition –= in its English liberal “hands off” approach to government – which he sincerely claimed to deplore. As Walicki writes, “he subconsciously adopted and applied to Russia’s past one of the chief assumptions of Western European liberal doctrine R