How far do you agree that a study of Russian government in the period 1855-1953 suggests that Russia did little more than exchange Romanov Tsars for “Red Tsars” in 1917? Felix Williams Upper Sixth From a theoretical perspective, there are few points of similarity to draw between the late-Tsarist and Soviet regimes. Ideologically, they are opposed – at first glance, the market leaning, highly autocratic hereditary monarchy of Tsardom has nothing at all in common with the collectivised, socialist democracy that was the USSR. However, the de jure ideologies of the two regimes only tell a fraction of the story. In reality, the two eras had a vast amount in common; thus, the phrase ‘Red Tsars’ is an accurate epithet to describe the Soviet rulers. Beneath the superficial ideological differences, there are profound similarities. The actions of the governments in office, and their organisational structures, often suggest continuity, as does the attitude to reform of the regimes. Differences do emerge in the regimes’ use of repression and terror. However, this difference emanates from the Soviets taking a more extreme version of the initial Tsarist tack, rather than the Soviets taking a completely different direction. Therefore, Russia did little more than exchange Romanov Tsars for ‘Red Tsars’ – the primacy of the state over the individual was crucial for every government in this timeframe, and the absolute authority of such a state was similarly preserved. This exchange was not as simple as first glance might suggest. This lack of clarity is partly due to the (admittedly short) interlude of
the Provisional Government in 1917; as the existence of it certainly dilutes the claim that the exchange was a straightforward one. One area of difference is within the ideologies of the two regimes: Marxism for the Soviets and ‘official nationality’ for the Tsarist regime - described by JN Westwood as ‘orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality’ which ‘provided ideological justification for the…actions of government’. Marxism has boundless confidence in humanity, believing that human nature can be moulded entirely by circumstance – indeed, given the right environment, human nature can be perfected. This view runs in stark contrast to the ideology of the Tsars. The leading thinker who codified the Tsarist ideology is Konstantin Pobedonostev, who took a dim view of human nature, particularly Russian human nature, saying ‘inertness and laziness are generally characteristics of the Slavonic nature’. He believed that a strongman ruler was needed to control and restrain intrinsically flawed humanity, which was fixed regardless of situation.
Another distinction arises between the ideologies on their view of society, the economy, and their development. Marxists saw the ideal society as one that was classless and stateless – a set of decentralised communes with autonomy, where individuals inside a commune take from it what they need and give what they can in labour, which came into being through the dialectic. Contrastingly, Tsars viewed history ‘as the organic development of authoritarian tradition’ , rather than ‘as a process of class conflict, operating dialectically’ as the Soviets did. The Tsarist view of the state informs the Tsarist view of society; the Tsar’s primary function was to uphold the social hierarchy and ensure the welfare of the people. The concept of hierarchy is absent from Marxism. Indeed, the entire basis of Marxist ideology is to destroy it. The Marxist view of the economy is that the market, through the profit motive, exploits the proletariat by creating ‘surplus value.’ Exploitation is the justification for the overthrow of the capitalist system in a revolution. Opposed to this view is that of the Tsars - it was a ‘dream’ of Stolypin to dismantle the commune. Furthermore, the Tsars viewed the state as an expedient to ‘turbocharge’ the market-driven economy, as opposed to the Marxist view of the market as an expedient in a state-planned economy.
[T]he primacy of the state over the individual was crucial for every government in this timeframe.
Another difference in the sphere of ideology is the primacy of religion in the Tsarist era, which is virtually non-existent in the Soviet period. The Church ‘never rose in Russia to that commanding height which it attained in the Catholic West’ , but it was nonetheless central to the lives of everyday people. Orthodoxy was one of the main pillars of Alexander III’s ideology. Marxists, by contrast, were passionate atheists who declared organised religion a tool of proletariat repression and that ‘it is the opium of the people’. The two ideologies of the respective periods of government have next to nothing in common with each other.
Karl Marx
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