The Origins of Autocracy

The powerful church hierarchy stood in the way of a reforma­tion. In the way of confiscation of peasant holdings stood the powerful boyar aristocracy and the fragile, immature Russian proto-bourgeoisie. The rival elites of the country were heading for a confrontation, creating an increasingly unstable and deli­cate balance of forces. Only the tsar and his bureaucracy were capable of resolving the issue.

Three options lay before the tsarist administration: it could throw its weight behind the aristocracy and the proto-bour­geoisie, and reform the church (this was the choice of Ivan III, the creator of the Muscovite state); it could join with the church in setting the service nobility against the boyars and the proto- bourgeoisie, in the process crushing the peasantry; or it could opt for war against the Tatar South, continuing the Recon- quista and at the same time bringing about a provisional na­tional reconciliation.

The most likely outcome of the first course would probably have been much the same as in Denmark or Sweden—a grad­ual Europeanization of the country, notwithstanding reversals and mutinies; the most likely result of the second was serfdom and universal service; the most likely result of the third was the ultimately irreversible strengthening of the Russian proto- bourgeoisie, which would have made the transition of Muscovy to the status of a European power even more rapid than the first course.

It was precisely this disposition of political forces which created the role of supreme arbiter, and invested the executor of this role with decisive power. One thing is clear, at least for the modern observer: Russia could not continue to live as it had done for centuries. It was becoming an empire. Its administrative and military apparatus clearly demonstrated its backwardness. Tension in the relations of rival elites—the aristocracy, the church, the service nobility, and the cen­tral bureaucracy—was becoming unbearable, and had to be dis­charged, whether by compromise or mortal struggle.

The heart of the choice remained a strategic question: whether Muscovy should continue its attack on the khanate of the Crimea, and on Turkey, which stood behind it—thus becoming a de facto member of the European anti-Turkish coalition, or whether it should strike at Livonia and the Baltic—"turn against the Germans," as Ivan IV had it—thus becoming a de facto member of the anti-European coalition. The entire political future of the country depended on this choice. Only a great national struggle against the Tatars and Turkey—the logical continuation of the struggle against the yoke of past cen­turies—could ease the tensions in the nation's establishment; could return to Russia her black earth; could secure her southern frontier; could rescue the peasants from serfdom; could save hundreds of thousands of Russian souls from being carried off into slavery by the Tatars; could unite Russians and give them a clear national goal.

On the other hand, the "turn against the Germans" promised only a transformation of the latent tensions within the establishment into an open struggle, left the southern frontier open to the Tatars, and entailed fruitless attempts at an alliance with Turkey against Eu­rope—not to speak of potentially rousing a European coalition against Russia. An anti-European and thus pro-Tatar strategy was likely to bring on national disaster.

Such, indeed, was the case. The origins of Russia's anti-European autocracy, destined to last for centuries to come, can be traced di­rectly to the "turn against the Germans." This is the core of my hypothesis.

5. The Catastrophe

It is difficult to deny that Russia underwent a terrible metamorphosis in consequence of the "turn against the Germans." Only recently the insolent Ivan IV of Muscovy had officially refused to call the kings of Sweden and Denmark "brother," asserting that only the greatest sov­ereigns—the German emperor and the Turkish sultan—would dare address him thus. He had scolded Queen Elizabeth of England as a "common maiden," and treated King Stefan Batory of Poland as a plebeian among kings. Ivan had just refused an honorable peace with Poland, which had given up the conquered Livonian cities to Russia, including the first-class port of Narva. In a contemptuous letter to the first Russian political emigre, Prince Kurbskii, the tsar declared that God was on his side—in the proof of which the victorious banners of Muscovy floated over the Baltic coast—and that had it not been for traitors like Kurbskii he would, with God's help, have conquered all of Germany. In short, Russia was at the peak of its power.