The Origins of Autocracy

In fact, nothing in these arguments against the conception of "hydraulic civiliza­tion" operates against the phenomenon of despotism as such. In Igor' D'akonov's study of the social structure of ancient Mesopotamia (Obshchestvennyi i gosudarstbennyi stroi drevnego Dvurech'ia. Shumer) the existence in predespotic Sumer of city-states headed by rulers (ensi) whose power was limited by an aristrocratic senate and an assembly of the people is shown. It follows that large-scale irrigation facilities in ancient Mesopotamia, just as in ancient predespotic China (see L. S. Perelomov, Imperiia Tsin'—pervoe tsentral- izovannoe gosudarstvo Kitaia), could be supported and regulated not only by a centralized bureaucracy, but by city-states of the ancient type. D'akonov notes, however, that despo­tism nevertheless did arise in Mesopotamia in the Third Dynasty of Ur (2132-24 в.с.), while Perelomov concedes that it appeared in China under the Ch'in Dynasty, though rejecting it for the Yin and Chou Dynasties.

Neither is the existence of despotism refuted by the constant and fierce struggle

When I constructed my "ideal model" of despotism, I was not famil­iar with Wittfogel's work; I had never had occasion to encounter it in Moscow, and I am not sure that more than a couple of scholars had read it there. I am glad, however, that, at least in certain essential points, the "construction" which I now intend to offer the reader echoes Wittfogel's description.

3. Despotism

This is how it looks. Despotism is based on the total disposition by the administration of the results of the society's economic activity. The despotic state, possessing supreme sovereignty over the entire na­tional product (that is, being able to extract it without hindrance from the producers), does not recognize economic limitations on its power. The absence of economic limitations, by paralyzing the initiative of the producers, naturally leads—in historical perspective—to more or less permanent stagnation. In other words, despotism is incapable of rad­ical economic modernization.

The lack of what we call economic progress is combined with an absence of political dynamism—with what can be called the simple po­litical reproduction of despotism. This confirms Montesquieu's asser­tion that despotism excludes the historical movement of society. In order to exist for millennia under conditions of economic and politi­cal immobility, despotism had to work out a special kind of social structure. It is characterized by extreme simplification and polariza-