The Origins of Autocracy

The development of the multinational centralized state in Russia in the sixteenth century was the beginning of the transformation of Russia into a prison of people. But if this had not occurred, Russia would have been the prey of the Mongols or of Poland. . . . The policy of Peter I laid a heavy burden on the peasants, [but] saved Russia from the pros­pect of transformation into a colony or semicolony of Sweden, which threatened it.[224]

What Mongols could have threatened Russia in the sixteenth cen­tury? Who does not know that it was not the Swedes who attacked Russia under Peter in 1700, but Russia which attacked the Swedes? Stalin could permit himself to say those things—out of ignorance, from political calculation, or because of the paranoia which convulsed him. But how could the professional experts permit themselves this? And yet they did so. Russian historiography suddenly began to speak with the voice of Ivan the Terrible. With the new, militaristic apologia, a third "historiographic nightmare" rolled down on Ivaniana. Forgot­ten was S. M. Solov'ev's injunction: "Let not the historian say a word in justification of such a person." This person was justified. Forgotten was A. K. Tolstoi's horror in the face of the fact that "there could exist a society which could gaze upon him without indignation." Such a so­ciety existed.

7. A Medieval Vision

How could this happen? I understand that this is to some extent a personal question. It concerns not so much the explanation of histor­ical circumstances as the moral collapse of Russian historiography—a phenomenon which in religious parlance would probably be called a fall from grace. For a Western author, the question would presuppose an objective analysis of what in fact did happen. What did not hap­pen, he would leave out of account. I cannot allow myself that luxury. For me, this is a piece of life, and not only the subject of academic consideration. I feel myself infinitely humiliated because this hap­pened to my country in my generation. The problem for me is not only one of describing the past, but of coming to terms with it. For this reason, everything I here offer the reader is closer to personal confession than to scholarly analysis. Those indifferent to historical reflection and inclined to think that "facts are facts and the rest is belles lettres," as one great Russian poet used to say, can quietly skip this subsection.

One cannot come to terms with the fall from grace of a nation without coming to terms with it in one's self. In me, as in every off­spring of Russian culture, two souls coexist. But not peacefully: they fight to the death—exactly as its two cultural traditions contend in the consciousness of the nation. Each of these has its own hierarchy of values. The highest value of the one is order (and, correspondingly, the lowest is anarchy or chaos). The highest value of the other is free­dom (and, correspondingly, the lowest is slavery). I fear chaos and hate slavery. I feel the temptation to believe in "a strong regime" able to defend the humiliated and aggrieved, to dry all tears and console all griefs. And I am ashamed of this temptation. Sometimes it seems to me that freedom gives birth to chaos (as it seemed to Solov'ev, who saw the major evil of Russian life in "the freedom of movement"). Sometimes it seems to me that slavery gives birth to order (as it seemed to Polosin, who justified serfdom). It is precisely in the epoch of the "historiographic nightmare" which we are considering, that the fun­damental incompatibility of both traditions comes to light with ulti­mate clarity. The time has come to choose between them.

For almost 400 years the gigantic shadow of its first autocrator has loomed over Russian history, now losing his crown, and now raised again to imperial dignity. Never until now, however, has his terrible heritage threatened the very existence of the nation as a moral union. I am not speaking only of the fact that we have lived through the nightmare of the GULAG, but also of the impossibility of living any longer with the consciousness that this nightmare may be repeated, that the most honored and learned preceptors of our nation will again abase themselves—and abase the nation—by justifying serfdom, ter­ror, and aggression. That once again they will help the tyrant to legiti­mize slavery by legitimizing the tradition of slavery.