Rebels in the Name of the Tsar

Posted by Sean on October 30, 2006 Leave a comment (24) Go to comments

No matter how many times he denies it, people keep asking Vladimir Putin if he will seek a third term. He was asked again during Wednesday’s “Hot Line with President of Russia Vladimir Putin”. A driver named Arkady Kokayev asked, “What will happen to us, to the country after 2008?” In addition to assurances that things will be fine after his term is over Putin said,

As for me personally, as I have said before, even though I like my work, the Constitution does not allow me to run for office three times in a row. But even once I no longer have my presidential powers, I think that without trying to shape the Constitution to fit my personal interests, I will be able to hold on to what is most important and most valuable for any politician, namely, your trust. And building on this trust we will work together with you in order to influence our country’s life, ensure that it follows a consistent path of development and have an impact on what happens in Russia

So there you have it. Another denial that he will seek a third term. Though he maintains that his influence will still be felt.

The “Hot Line” is a fascinating event in and of itself; an event whose importance is too often quickly passed over. The switchboard received over a million calls from citizens asking Putin questions that ranged from the economy, Russia’s future, Georgia, the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and issues regarding everyday life. It is one of the few instances where the mediation between leaders and led is reduced to a point that allows for a measure of unpredictability. Far more unpredictability than journalists’ questions seem to provide. It is one of the few instances when a leader is directly confronted with people’s personal grievances.

The process is also a long tradition in Russia. As Dmitry Babich noted on Russia Profile, the event upholds the idea of na?ve monarchism, where the leader appears to be on the side of the people against evil bureaucrats that try to ruin their lives. It maintains the leader as part of the “eternal good,” as Babich calls it.

There are many instances of the “eternal good” in Russian history. When Alexander II emancipated the serfs, thousands of peasants sent petitions were to the Tsar claiming that landlords were defying the Tsar’s will to give them real and complete volia (freedom).

As one N. A. Krylov wrote about cause for the massacre of 55 peasants at Benza, Samara gubernia in 1861,

“Anton [Petrov, an Old Believer who claimed to discover true volia in the emancipation decree] sits in his hut at Bezdna looking at these naughts and smoothly reading out, “Land for the pomeshchik: the hills and the hollows, the ravines and the roads, the sandbanks and the reedbeds, and nor one twig of the forest. If he takes a step over the boundary of his land, drive him back with a kind word, and if he doesn’t obey—cut off his head and you will get a reward from the tsar.” The narod liked this kind of volia, and crowds came in from all sides to hear real volia. . . .Anton preached like this for five days in a row. Then he put abroad rumors that he had received a charter from the Tsar, read the Bible until he attained the power of prophecy, and, mixing the one and the other together preached, “. . . They [the landlords] are going to frighten you with troops, but don’t be afraid, no one dares to kill the orthodox people without the tsar’s order. And if the nobles distribute bribes [to the soldiers] and you are shot at, then get your axes and chop up those who disobey the tsar.” (D. Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar, 72)

For the peasantry, the tsar was on their side.

Things were no different in the Soviet period. Party leaders were inundated with letters asking for material and psychological help. Many of the complaints were about injustices perpetrated by Communist bureaucrats. Then, as now, the people turned to the “eternal good” for help even if the Kremlin was occupied by someone as heinous as Stalin. Believe it or not, if Stalin’s handwriting in the corners of letters, passing them to his officials for redress is any indication, sometimes the petitioners even got results to their favor.

One can easily pass this off as PR to keep up the image that the leader cares for the people. And though it is certainly true, I think that explanation is too simple. It also says something about what the “people” expect from their leaders, and how they feel they have a right to have those expectations met.

I wouldn’t call this mentality a sign of “formal” democracy. The fact that citizens feel the only avenue to redress is to appeal directly to the top suggests that the institutions that mediate them are untrustworthy, ineffective or wholly corrupt. But it is a form of “informal” democracy because Russians feel that their leaders have a responsibility to the people and the people have a right to demand redress from their leaders. This mentality may be na?ve monarchism personified, but the last two times Russians lost faith in the “eternal good,” they brought the whole system crashing down.

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24 Comments.

  1. W. Shedd October 30, 2006 at 8:04 pm

    Gee, Putin is looking very bronzed in that photo.

    Must be all that time he is spending down in Sochi.

    There was an article on Russian Profile recently that also was regarding the idea of “Goodness Inside the Kremlin” and this concept that many Russians have of the leader being benevolent, but the mid- to upper level bureaucrats being bad. As you cite, it has a long history in Russia.

  2. f. kriukov October 30, 2006 at 9:54 pm

    What about Yeltsin? He wasn’t perceived as “benevolent” in his second term. And yet, I bet he received as many requests for justice as Putin does.

    It’s not a belief in a “good tsar”. It’s a belief that the tsar (or any other head of the executive branch) is supposed to be good. This is the work that is expected from a person in that position. Similar requests are also sent to governors and mayors. This is simply how the system works, where one goes up the administrative ladder when asking for redress. Some simply choose to skip right to the top. Some don’t.

    This “good tsar — bad boyars” theory is simply an overgeneralization designed to demonstrate the backwardness of the Russian national psyche. It completely disregards the grievances sent to all other branches of the executive, or even to national newspapers (especially relevant in Soviet times), since they don’t fit in this artificial construction.

  3. Sean Guillory October 31, 2006 at 4:41 am

    Kriukov: Actually Babich did mention Yeltsin in this context. Unfortunately, Russia Profile’s site is down at the moment so I can’t quote it.

    And I don’t think I was painting Russia as backward. In fact, I said pretty much what you said. I wrote, “But it is a form of “informal” democracy because Russians feel that their leaders have a responsibility to the people and the people have a right to demand redress from their leaders.” I don’t see how this is different from your statement “It also says something about what the “people” expect from their leaders, and how they feel they have a right to have those expectations met.”

    In fact, I would argue that to suggest that naïve monarchism is a one way street, as you seem to suggest, is characterizing Russians as “backward.” I actually think that it goes both ways. The leader uses “naïve monarchism” for his own purposes, i.e. PR and legitimacy, while the people use it for their own purposes. As the petitions and letters to Alexander II and to Soviet leaders suggest, Russians appropriated the notion of the “good tsar” for their own purposes—to resist the people who were directly oppressing them.

    And judging from the work I’ve done in provincial archives on the Soviet period, while people did write letters to local officials, the vast majority went to people like Lenin, Stalin, Kalinin, Bukharin and other central notables. I am sure more letters go to George Bush than say the Governator.

    Historians have also shown that during Soviet times, Russians used the language of the regime against them. This is the argument put forward by Jeffrey Rossman, among others, in his book Worker Resistance under Stalin: Class and Revolution on the Shop Floor. So I agree with your statements.

    But what makes “naïve monarchism” inherently backward? All societies have particular ideological structures that maintain the hegemony of those in power.

  4. johnnie b. baker October 31, 2006 at 5:48 am

    The idea of personal redress to a higher authority, be it a mayor or president or newspaper, continuing to this day shows the contuing lawlessness in Russia, where there are no formal mechanisms of redress, only arbitrary use of political power. In a sense, the fact that Russia leads in complaints to the European Court of Human Rights is an example of this, though it may also be an example of some Russians actually trying to use formal methods of redress.

    The “Good Tsar” I believe is used by some to demonstrate Russia’s percieved backwardness, though I don’t agree with this. “Naive Monarchism” as a term perpetuates the idea of a gullible society, one that actually thinks the highest authority cares about what happens to them, and that this authority listens to them. But I don’t think this gullibilty is limited to Russia. Politicians around the world in fact rely on the gullibilty of the population in everything they do. Look at the Republicans in the US. Don’t look at how we’re raping the country economically, environmentally, and morally, just worry about gay marriage. Putin’s call-in show is great p.r. that hopes to exploit this gullibilty.

    But besides all this, what I find most interesting is while Putin again states that he won’t run for president again, he pretty much flat out says that he will remain the governing force in Russia. He is not planning on relinquishing power, just the title. How will he do this? I don’t know. My question is, though a president can only serve for two terms, is that only at one time? Can he then step down for one election, then become president again in the next election, coming back for another eight years? Maybe someone can answer that for me.

  5. f. kriukov October 31, 2006 at 5:40 pm

    Sorry, Sean, I might’ve been reading too much into what you wrote. It’s just that the theme on which you’ve touched has been a staple of the backwardness discourse since time immemorial. You know, those bearded intelligentsia types sitting in the kitchen (or another room before the revolution) discussing how the backward and ignorant Russian people stupidly subscribe to the “good tsar — bad boyars” theory, not even realizing that the Russian government is the source of all evil and is really out to get them.

    And johnnie b. baker, you’re oversimplifying. What other methods of redress are there? The courts? They cost money. But writing to the executive up the chain of command is free. And I don’t know about other countries, but in Russia it often works. It’s worked often enough to encourage the people to keep doing it.

  6. johnnie b. baker October 31, 2006 at 7:16 pm

    i said there were no other methods of redress within russia, and letter writing, as the only real means of redress, whether it works or not, is the arbitraty use of personal political power, whether good or bad. i don’t do not understand what i oversimplified to you.

  7. f. kriukov October 31, 2006 at 7:58 pm

    You oversimplified by claiming that there are no other methods of redress, when there are courts. And before you attack Russia’s judiciary, you should realize that the number of court cases brought by Russian citizens increased from 1 million under Yeltsin to 6 million today, with citizens winning 71% of cases brought against the government authorities (Nicolai N. Petro, “Russia through the looking-glass”).

    The practice of complaining directly to the executive for the redress of grievances is something extra on top of the legal system. Moreover, many of the requests actually deal with change of policy rather than with protecting citizens’ rights.

  8. Cyrill October 31, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    The practice of complaining to the highest authority reflects both feudal mindset and feudal social structure. And as such, being a symptom of a backward social structure, it illustrates backwardness of contemporary Russia.

    It does not, however have anything to do with backwardness of people and the red herring imagery of bearded intellectuals. People do what they think has the best chance of success in the current social and political structure.

  9. f. kriukov October 31, 2006 at 9:33 pm

    If “complaining to the highest authority reflects both feudal mindset and feudal social structure”, then I guess that with a modern mindset and social structure people complain to the lowest authority, or don’t complain at all, or have nothing to complain about? Is that correct?

    But thanks for illustrating my point about kitchen intelligentsia (not intellectuals, mind you) bemoaning Russia’s backwardness.

  10. Cyrill October 31, 2006 at 9:42 pm

    “You know, those bearded intelligentsia types sitting in the kitchen (or another room before the revolution) discussing how the backward and ignorant Russian people stupidly”

    My emphasis. I knew this was coming and specifically stated that it had nothing to do with people, it was directed at the structure of society. Why do you feel important to deliberately distort what I said? Truth hurts?

  11. f. kriukov October 31, 2006 at 9:57 pm

    No, Cyrill, bizarre leaps of logic hurt. They really do. As well as evading answering direct questions.

    The terms “people” and “structure of society” are nearly equivalent. After all, people are “the entire body of persons who constitute a community, tribe, nation, or other group by virtue of a common culture, history, religion, or the like”. When kitchen intelligentsia talks of the backwardness of the Russian people, they don’t necessarily mean that each and every individual is “backward” (how can you even apply this term to individuals?), but that the organization of the entire people (as a body of persons) is archaic. Very close to what you’ve just claimed.

    Now that we got that out of the way, would you finally condescend and explain how complaints to authority are handled in non-feudal societies? And then we’ll see just how feudal Russia is.

  12. johnnie b. baker October 31, 2006 at 10:17 pm

    kruikov! you yourself said that courts cost money! so i guess i thought you were criticising the court system, since most russian’s don’t have such money. you have totally confused me.

    and in america one of the most fundamental ideas of democracy is that if you have a problem that has not been solved to your satisfation, “then write your congressman!” this is considered a form of direct democracy, and if your complaint is not attended to to your satisfation, you can choose not to vote for the person.

    my question to cyrill is, does this mean america has a backwards social structure?

  13. Cyrill October 31, 2006 at 10:54 pm

    “The terms “people” and “structure of society” are nearly equivalent.”

    This is known as type mismatch. It’s the same as to claim that the content of this blog is the same with the code that runs it.

    And no, backwardness of people mean backwardness of their mentality, like obscurantism, backwardness of social structure is different, but if you want to claim that Russian people are backward minded, who am I to argue. So, no, we have not gotten it out of the way.

    Mr. Baker here already pointed out how. You seem to think that a 7-fold increase or a 10-fold increase in number of court cases means Russia is on par with the developed world. It does not. It means that a very good progress is made, and it means that too much of Russia is government controlled.

    When I was in Russia in May, I saw another one of those charade spectacles – Putin, the good and fair sovereign having an open door day for the people to come in and complain. A woman from Stavropol region complained that she could not get either water or power connection – does not matter – at her homestead. She asked Putin to help out which he did and threatened not to re-appoint the then governor until he personally dealt with this. Crews went to work on it within hours.

    The whole concept of the Nations President dealing with something puny and mundane like that and even royally dispatching a governor to deal with someone’s water connection? That is feudalism pure and simple – that the social and administrative structure is such that something like this is even possible to occur.

    This illustrates not so much the mentality, somebody in the US could easily dream up an idea to send a letter to Bush, but that it would work. That’s what makes it feudalism, not the attempt. That President’s power stretches as far as to direct local waterworks and prioritize construction work – that is feudalism.

    And here is the difference between people and social structure. People did not create this lunacy, Putin and his likes did. People are just using their natural smarts to try for a working solution.

  14. f. kriukov October 31, 2006 at 11:43 pm

    Cyrill, you are confusing the backwardness of people as individuals, and the backwardness of THE people as “the entire body of persons”. You might recall that in English the term “people” has a variety of meanings, so some precision is lost when translating certain Russian cliches. Time for you to move on.

    I would also caution you against leaping to conclusions about what I allegedly seem to believe. The statistics on the court cases simply reflect the use of that avenue for redressing grievances by the Russian population. That’s in the context of the discussion on the availability of other methods of redress besides the appeals to the executive. Hopefully, next time you will not miss the context of statistics I might cite.

    I am not comparing Russia to other states because I don’t have all relevant statistics in my disposal. If you could provide some, it would be greatly appreciated. And I would especially appreciate that you would provide such statistics every time you make claims of comparative nature.

    As for your specific example, I have to point out that Putin’s previous “Direct Line” (when the question from Stavropol was asked) was held in September 2005. Thus, either you weren’t in Russia in May, or you were, but didn’t see this particular “charade spectacle”. In any case, get your story straight.

    And what exactly is feudal about that? If Putin has the power to appoint governors, then he is responsible for them not doing their job — they’re his people now. And it’s not “puny and mundane” — it’s great PR, which shows that Putin is an astute politician. You might’ve had a point if Putin handled every problem that way. But since he doesn’t, it’s not very honest of you to confuse a politician’s PR with the way his government works.

    In general, if a governor isn’t doing his job (and not violating any particular laws), what other non-feudal means of redress are left to the population, except talking to the governor’s boss? Care to elucidate?

  15. Cyrill November 1, 2006 at 2:10 am

    Kriukov, I am sorry you can not seem to grasp the difference between structure and content. Either that or you deliberately want to paint Russian people as backward, while I am trying to point that it is the system that they find themselves in – the system that you seem to be so happy with, when Presidents take care of water issues – is backward.

    What statistics do you expect from me exactly? The total number of court claims? Irrelevant, since as I said, Russians depend on the government much more then First World countries.

    As for the charade with Putin, I just happened to be in Russia both in May this year and in September of last year, so you can have your gotcha, I don’t mind.

    Now, answering your question of what is feudal about the situation when the President of a Nation directs a governor to fix water connection or to build one – simple. In a non-feudal (read a developed capitalist) state a President a) would not have such an authority and b) the issue most likely would have been resolved long ago by either market forces or in a court with the owner of the parcel if she is not the owner.

    It is quite telling that you see nothing wrong with this President Plumber-in-Chief. PR wise, it does exactly what Putin and apparently not just him, want – create an image of a powerful all caring and all capable ruler that can even fix plumbing in Stavropol steppes. That isn’t a feudal image? Does it work with some of his base, I have to assume it does.

    A governor’s job is to make sure that water is flowing to a homestead? Well, yes, in this case, you are right, if this is his job, then Putin is absolutely correct to do what he did. It just is a feudal way of doing things, that’s all.

  16. W. Shedd November 1, 2006 at 4:26 am

    Of course, many American politicians have historically built their reputations and careers on such “feudal-style politics”, as you call it. “All politics are local” as the old-saying goes. Corruption usually goes along with this style of politics as well.

    A notable example of this style in the US would be Huey Long. Some might argue that Lyndon Johnson was a similar style of President, who might call in a favor or berate some low ranking bureaucrat to get something done. To some degree, this sort of behavior will always exist in political offices – what good is it to be a politial leader if you can’t actually call up some government agent and light a fire under their ass to do something directly and immediately?

  17. Michael Averko November 1, 2006 at 8:38 am

    Re:

    “Could either of you provide quote demonstrating that they really hate Russians? Otherwise it sounds a bit… imaginary.

    Overall, one does not hear much about professional Anglophobes, or Francoophobes, it is always poor Russians that seem to be hated so much for no reasons altogether. Never oppressed anyone, never built no iron curtains, never crushed no uprisings in Hungary.”

    ****

    This has been already done here. How does one justify the neo-Nazi bigotry of the Captive Nations Committee, discussed in the link at my name (which was previously posted)? Once again (as per a prior posted comment of mine), note that Edward Lucas recently lauded the CNC.

    The USSR could’ve NEVER existed without the willing assistance of non-Russian Soviet and non-Soviet Communists (the latter to mean loyal Bulgarians, Poles et al.). Loyal non-Russian Communists would get rewarded as non-Communist Russian patriots were suppressed. The referenced 1956 suppression in Hungary was well represented by non-Soviet Warsaw Pact forces in addition to non-Russian Soviet personnel.

    BTW – British rule in Ireland wasn’t more humane than Russia’s in Poland. Also, Ireland never posed a threat to Britain, whereas, Poland had its share of aggressions against Russia. British rule in China wasn’t less brutal than Russia’s presence in that country.

    Sean: Pipes “Russia Under the Old Regime” is a mix of quality historical work and his earlier mentioned bias.

  18. f. kriukov November 1, 2006 at 10:51 pm

    Cyrill, you don’t have to be sorry. I can perfectly understand what you’re saying. The only problem is that you’re misinterpreting the term “people”. Otherwise all is fine.

    What statistics I want from you? Any statistics that would serve as evidence to back up your comparative claims. For example, you’ve claimed that “Russians depend on the government much more then First World countries.” Do you have any statistics to substantiate it? Or are you simply basing this on your intuition?

    Finally, you completely failed to understand my reply about the call-in with Putin. I said that it’s simply political PR. Putin can perfectly afford to do it once in a while and look good in front of the cameras. However, it is dishonest to try to pass it off as his method of government. Both you and I know that Putin does not concern himself with every single village that has no running water. But he did concern himself with one single village a year ago. Which earned him some political capital. Is this feudalism? No. This is the result of the era of television. Which technology did not exist during real feudalism. Nevertheless, polticians’ PR of that sort should happen under any system of gov’t — feudalism, monarchy, democracy, republic or non-traditional authoritarian…

  19. Cyrill November 2, 2006 at 6:12 am

    I understand that I don’t have to be sorry, but I am a compassionate Russian and I always feel sorry for those that can not for whatever reason see the simple distinction between form and substance, structure and content, bottle and cognac.

    Did you really need statistics to see that Russian people depend more on their government? OK.

    From 2006 Index of Economic Freedom: http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Russia

    The banking sector is dominated by two state-owned banks. “As of end-2003,” reports First Initiative, “there were approximately 1,300 banks in Russia, the majority of which were small and illiquid.

    I am not sure there is a need to provide statistics for Utilities. Electricity comes from RAO OES, heating is still centralized in St Pete at least, I doubt Moscow is much different.

    Transportation… Russian Railways, Aeroflot.

    TV: out of basic 13 channels in St Pete, at least 4 are state owned not counting subservant entities like NTV.

    Telecom. Except for cell phone companies, that would be Rostelecom

    Here is an interesting one from World Socialist Website (wsws.org) – I have no idea how reliable they are:
    “Social security benefits were divided into two categories: central and regional. There are about 14 million persons entitled to payments centrally and 20 million on a regional level. On this basis, far-reaching cuts in social and welfare payments were made in the central budget. Given that 70 per cent of regional households are financed by the central government, it is clear that newly announced concessions will enormously increase expenditures from the central budget.”

    But even if the 70% is a gross exaggeration, what’s the percentage of pensioners that get private pension or live off savings?

    And this does not even cover regulatory control exercised over 100 insurance companies that control 90% of premiums. And how many of them are private?

  20. f. kriukov November 2, 2006 at 7:18 am

    Cyrill, if you want to say that the Russian government owns large chunks of the national economy, you should say exactly that, not that “Russians depend on the government much more then First World countries.” When you make a statement like that, the image conjured up is of people queueing up in front of the government offices awaiting handouts. For which you did not provide any statistics. But thanks for trying. Hopefully, in the future you will also try to find statistics illustrating comparative statements.

    I take it we’re settled of feudalism, then?

  21. Cyrill November 2, 2006 at 7:08 pm

    Kriukov, I am not responsible for images conjuring in your head, but getting pensions, salaries, gas, power, water, telephone services, banking services, transportation services from the government means depending on these government services.

    And that’s feudalism.

    Sean, your Captha is broken, sometime it asks to verify letter several times, sometimes it does not display the image to verify.

  22. Alex(ei) November 3, 2006 at 8:27 am

    Sorry for getting into this argument, but “to depend on the government”, as most people I am sure will read it, does not include working for commercially viable companies that happen to be government-owned. It all changes, though, if these government-owned companies also happen to be subsidized by the state — directly, or through the state’s toleration of enormous inefficiencies in their operations. Moreover, a field engineer at Gazprom depends little on the government — he will keep his job and pay under any management — but an overpaid senior manager may very well be the opposite case.

    Sean, have you noticed that there is something manichean/gnostic about the “good tsar, bad boyars” attitude? The world is dirty and so are things of this world, such as bureaucrats; the tsar, anointed from above, is not of the world.

  23. Sean Guillory November 3, 2006 at 3:30 pm

    Alexei, I’m not sure what you mean by Manichean/gnostic. Could you explain? I might have a different understanding of Manichean and I want to be clear before I comment.

  24. Alex(ei) November 5, 2006 at 8:43 am

    Sean, the central teaching of Manicheanism as I understand it, is a fight between Good and Evil as two equal, primeval forces shaping the world, both necessary to its existence. (In orthodox Christianity, there is no such symmetry or equality between Good and Evil.) Gnostic teachings almost always contrasted the body and the soul (or spirit), to the point of seeing the body (“the prison of the soul”) as evil. (As opposed to Christianity, which sees all creation as originally good but flawed through Adam’s fall.) Many Christian heresies combined the two approaches: the symmetry between good and evil, and the identification of flesh, body, or this world in general, with evil. Some of those heresies made its way into popular Christianity.