The Origins of Autocracy

Chaotic intensification of the ver­tical mobility of the governing class, connected with the liquida­tion of the category of "political death" (permanent "purge" of the elite).

Suppression of the boyar aristoc­racy.

Extirpation of the intellectual po­tential of the country, connected with the total ideological monop­oly of the state.

10. Divergence of goals, amounting to complete autonomy of the ad­ministration from the system.

Reduction of the social structure, and formation of a "new class."

Collectivization of the peasantry; workers and clerical personnel prohibited by law from changing jobs, resulting in cessation of the horizontal mobility of the gov­erned (with the exception of move­ment controlled by the state).

Chaotic intensification of the ver­tical mobility of the governing class, connected with the liquida­tion of the category of "political death" (permanent "purge" of the elite).

Halting of the aristocratization of the elite.

Extirpation of the intellectual po­tential of the country, connected with the total ideological monop­oly of the state.

10. Divergence of goals, amounting to complete autonomy of the ad­ministration from the system.

 

 

In this first phase of the cycle, the Russian political structure, both of the sixteenth century and of the twentieth, approaches that of des­potism (or, in modern parlance, becomes "totalitarian") to a max­imum degree. But it still cannot become identical with despotism, for two reasons:

First, the "rigidification" of the regime is connected not with a lack of institutional modernization (and a stagnating economy) but, on the contrary, with explosive modernization. The system is rapidly transformed, attempting in one feverish spurt, by mobilizing all of its resources, to outdistance the nations surrounding it.

Secondly, we encounter here one more regularity of the Russian political structure, paradoxical at first glance: namely the fact that, in contrast to despotism as we see it in ancient Egypt or China, or in By­zantium, not one Russian tyrant has been able to continue the "rigid" phase of the cycle beyond his own lifetime. His death has always meant the end of the phase. After Ivan the Terrible there was no other Ivan the Terrible; after Peter the Great there was no other Peter the Great; after Paul there was no other Paul. Nor after Stalin was there any other Stalin. It is obvious that the Russian political struc­ture cannot sustain permanent tyranny (and, in this sense, does not fit the Aristotelian description of despotism). For this reason, I call the starting phase of the cycle the phase of pseudodespotism.

But why can it not sustain permanent tyranny? It seems to me that the most probable explanation consists in the fact that, as distinct from the stagnating system of despotism, we are faced in Russia with a system which is fundamentally dynamic, and which is being de­stabilized by the rigidity and terror of the starting phase of the cycle.

It is possible that, for this reason, the pseudodespotic phase is fol­lowed after the death of each tyrant by a "Time of Troubles" charac­terized by:

The rehabilitation of the victims of the terror;

The rebirth of the political opposition;

The search for alternative models of political organization;

The—at least partial—recognition of latent limitations on power;

Attempts to work out guarantees against the restoration of the ancien regime—that is, to change the political structure itself.

In any case, these were precisely the functions of the Time of Troubles which followed the death of Ivan the Terrible (1584-1613) and also of the period after the death of Joseph Stalin (1953-64). They characterized the analogous phases after the deaths of Peter I,[36]Paul I, and Nicholas I as well.