"Socialism" by Ivan the Terrible

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Historical foundations of the ideology of "difficult times".

At the moment, we do not have a state ideology, that is, truly scientific knowledge about how to build our own future. Just in case, this is even recorded in the post-Soviet constitutions.

“No ideology can be established as state or obligatory” - Section I, Art. 13 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

“Democracy in the Republic of Belarus is carried out on the basis of a variety of political institutions, ideologies and opinions”, - Section I, Art. 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.

Naturally, this is not very good. Those who do not know where to sail will definitely not have a tailwind. However, in some cases, it is better to live for a while without ideology at all than to choose an unfortunate image of the future. The most famous example of such a historical mistake is the obsession with the idea of world domination, which captured the Germans in the first half of the 20th century.

They were also lucky that after two suicide attempts in 1914 and 1939, Germany survived as a state, and the Germans as a people. The winners could just wipe them off the map. And many would agree that it is deserved. In fact, a classic biblical story worthy of the Old Testament. The Germans sought to rise at the expense of others, destroyed kingdoms, enslaved peoples and were cast down into the underworld. In short, a great nation was destroyed by great pride.

It is largely thanks to National Socialism that the word "ideology" acquired a negative connotation, which remains to this day. Perhaps this term is not worth holding on to, after all, no matter what we call the image of the future

The main thing is to form it. And here we may be interested in the historical experience from that distant past, when no one knew the word "ideology" yet.

Historical challenge of the 16th century

What did our ancestors want half a thousand years ago, how did they see their desired future? This question just seems to be very difficult. In fact, we know for sure what the dream of the inhabitants of Russia was in the conditional year 1517. And what was their main problem.

Almost every summer and almost every winter a horde went out from the Crimea and the Nogai steppe. Armed with bows, knives, and sabers, often without armor and almost always without firearms - not so-so equipment for serious combat, they tended to avoid combat. But everyone took 10-15 meters of belts with them in order to tie the slaves. To increase the speed, the Tatars used "clockwork" horses: one got tired - they changed to the second, third. In two days, the horde penetrated 100-150 kilometers deep into the territory, deployed in a wide front and walked to the border, capturing people, livestock and generally any portable property along the way.

Depending on the situation, the Russian lands of Poland, Lithuania or the Muscovy became the hunting field of the Crimean slave traders. In each country, they had informants (usually merchants engaged in international trade) who helped them choose the best route for the raid. The speed of the horde's invasion was so lightning fast that the troops of the defenders could at best intercept the robbers laden with good on their way back. It was possible to meet them on the approaches to the border only with a very successful combination of circumstances.

In the summer, the Tatars attacked in small flocks of several hundred people. Hiding from the border patrols, they walked in ravines, did not make lights at night, and sent out scouts. This was a regular seasonal fishery.

In winter, they went on more serious trips, up to 20-30 thousand, and sometimes more, took part in them. Such a mass of people cannot be secretly conducted, however, the extraction could be more serious - cities, monasteries. In addition, in winter it was possible to walk on the ice of frozen rivers, which at other times were an obstacle that slowed down the movement of the horde. Therefore, the winter raids were much deeper, the Tatars repeatedly broke through to the deep rear, devastating even lands quite far from the border: Belarus, Galicia, Moscow, Vladimir.

Our textbooks attach great importance to the symbolic crushing of the Horde yoke in 1480, and the terrible period when the Crimeans caught Russian people and sold them like cattle generally falls outside the scope of official history. It seems that the accents are very controversial.

What is yoke? This is a tribute, which, by the way, was collected by the princes themselves, while borrowing the Chinese (advanced at that time) taxation system. That is, the yoke in a sense was a progressive phenomenon, if we leave out of brackets the destruction and desolation directly during the conquest of Russia by Khan Batu.

Moreover, it was precisely the yoke in the logic of budgetary centralization that contributed to the rise of Moscow, which united first the tribute flows, and then the Russian lands. In Sarai, the Russian princes were something like a party that played their games on an equal footing with other participants in the Horde politics.

But the slave trade of Crimea, when the whole country has occupied the "ecological niche" of the parasite, is a completely different matter. This is the tragedy of the East Slavic peoples - a common tragedy, despite the fact that they were separated by borders, and largely due to this division. And this is the main historical challenge that Russia faced in the 16th-17th centuries.

According to Alan Fisher, the total number of Russian people driven into slavery is about three million people, excluding those who died during the raids (and there could be even more of them). According to Michalon's recollections, one Jewish money changer, who was sitting on Perekop and looking at the endless lines of prisoners from Moscow, Lithuania and Poland, asked the passing ambassadors if there were still people in those countries or there was no one left.

If we take the same time period and compare the total population, the Eastern Slavs received a more tangible demographic blow than Africa due to the export of blacks to the plantations of North and South America. But only the transatlantic slave trade is recognized by the UN as the largest act of deportation of the population and violation of human rights, and the Crimean Nogai raids are not particularly interesting even in our official history. Meanwhile, the reflection of the Tatar threat became the most important moment that predetermined not only the future fate of our people, but also its worldview and ideology

Historical response: mobilization and nationalization

Thus, the ideas of the correct structure of the future in the Russian people of the 16th century were extremely simple. Work calmly and not be afraid that suddenly savages will jump out of the ravine, they will burn the house, they will kill you, and the children will be taken away to the full. Looking ahead, let's say that reality has exceeded expectations

In the 1520s, Grand Duke Vasily III began the construction of the Great Zasechnaya Line, a grandiose defensive structure consisting of forty fortresses and two lines of impassable forests and swamps. The forest was specially planted very densely, all the passages were littered with trees, local residents, under pain of severe punishment, were forbidden to trample paths in the notch. The treeless areas were partitioned off with ramparts and palisades. The depth of the line in some places reached 20-30 kilometers.

About 35 thousand people were involved in the maintenance of the notch line, and the time of its construction stretched for four decades. After the death of Vasily III, his business was continued by his wife - Elena Glinskaya, and then their son - Ivan the Terrible.

The organization of the defense required the concentration of resources in the hands of the grand duke's power. Like many European monarchs, the Moscow rulers carried out a partial secularization of church wealth. However, this was not enough.

In addition to the cost of spotting, it was necessary to maintain a standing army, because the feudal detachments of appanage princes and boyars, gathered from time to time, did not have the necessary efficiency. A separate line in the budget was the "full money" for the ransom of compatriots from captivity. Subsequently, a special ministry was even created that dealt with issues of redemption - Polonyanochny order.

Experiencing an extreme shortage of funds, Ivan IV carried out a massive confiscation of boyar and princely estates. He took their land to the state fund and distributed it among the servants - the nobles, who for their allotment were obliged at any time at the first call of the tsar to get ready for a campaign. From that moment on, the history of Russia took a different path.

Just at the time when ideas about the sacredness and inviolability of private property were forming in Europe, Russia was forced to carry out nationalization for the sake of more efficient use of resources in a difficult time for the country

Our historians often turn a blind eye to the economic reasons for the conflict between the tsar and the boyars. Meanwhile, in the second half of the 16th century, a redistribution of property took place, comparable to that which took place during the October Revolution of 1917. Naturally, this struggle was accompanied by extreme bitterness of the parties. It is foolish to explain the oprichnina and the terror against the boyars by the extremely difficult character of Grozny, although he was really distinguished by cruelty even against the background of his cruel century

But the other side also did not show much humanism. Terrible's mother Elena Glinskaya was poisoned when Ivan was 8 years old. The boyar opposition brutally cracked down on both her favorite Obolensky and the ministers who were the princess's associates in centralizing power. Three of Ivan's wives were also poisoned (he "went out of the way" after the death of the first, and everything that followed only aggravated his state of mind). Most likely, the tsar himself was also poisoned, just like his eldest son Ivan.

The year of a fundamental change

However, back to our Tatars. A large notch line could be traversed, although it took time, during which reinforcements had time to approach the defenders, and the inhabitants of the attacked area could hide in forests or fortresses. The business of slavers has ceased to bring the usual profits.

Crimean khans increased the pressure. Now they went to Russia not only to plunder. They needed to break the defenses, to return the Muscovy to its former "normal" state, convenient for hunting people.

In 1571, the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray burned down Moscow - only the stone Kremlin survived. The next year, the khan went simply to finish off the defeated enemy. The campaign was approved in Istanbul, and the Janissaries, perhaps the best infantry of the time, joined the Tatars. However, the army that Ivan IV created with such efforts, for the sake of financing which he boiled the boyar opposition in cauldrons and organized massive repressions, still did not disappoint.

In the summer of 1572, at Molody (this is not far from Domodedovo), in a fierce five-day battle, Russian troops defeated the horde along with the Janissary corps.

What is the significance of the Battle of the Young? Let's just say that the Russian people would continue to exist in any case. If they lived in the forests, they couldn't catch everyone. Above, one significant difference between Russia and Europe was noted, which concerned the attitude to private property. The Battle of Molodi brought another one.

The Russians had every chance of becoming the average population of Northern Europe. However, the victory brought Moscow out of the forests to the black earth, made it possible to colonize the Wild Field, and made it possible to move further east and south - to Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia

The raids continued after that, but a radical change in the confrontation occurred precisely in 1572. Not so much time has passed, and the internal regions of Russia for centuries (!) Have forgotten what war and the destruction associated with it are. This was exactly what the people wanted. This is where the secret of the extremely high and rather long popularity of the autocratic power lies, because it was she who was able to find the answer to the key historical challenge facing Russia.

Cycle change: privatization of state property

The new dynasty of the Romanovs for a long time retained the social structure laid down by Ivan the Terrible, although at first glance there is nothing in common between the styles of their rule. The Brezhnev era also bears little resemblance to Stalin's socialism, although there is a completely obvious historical continuity between them. However, any historical cycle sooner or later comes to an end.

Under the heirs of Peter I in the second half of the 18th century, Russia was no longer threatened by anything serious. It was a powerful and rich empire, and it was mortally dangerous for any neighbor to violate its borders. By inertia, it continued to increase its influence in the world, developed successfully and generally flourished.

In such conditions, the concentration of power and all resources was no longer a prerequisite for the country's survival. A total "privatization" of land ownership took place. Of course, the form of the then privatization was different from the present one, but the essence was similar. The nobles received the so-called "liberty". The state lands that they originally owned as a reward for military or civilian service became their private property. This gift to the elites was made by Peter III, and later confirmed by his widow Catherine II

The crunching of French bread lasted for a century and a half, until the new device accumulated insurmountable contradictions.

First, the luxurious life of the upper classes had to be ensured by the increasing exploitation of the working majority. And this did not add peace and stability to society.

Secondly, at the end of the 19th century, for the first time in several centuries, a power that posed a real military threat - Germany - emerged directly on the border of the Russian Empire. The Germans, united under the rule of warlike Prussia, showed an undisguised food interest in Russia.

One way or another, with or without Marxism, Russia was forced to return to the basics. With all due respect to the feelings of the monarchists, in 1941 Russia of the pre-revolutionary model would not have resisted. Objectively, it would not have withstood the blow. She was saved during the First World War only by the fact that most of the German troops were on the Western Front

Even before the revolution, many theorists drew attention to the special historical predisposition of Russia to socialism. That, strictly speaking, was a deviation from orthodox Marxism, according to which the socialist formation, in theory, should mature within a developed capitalist society. But practice has made its own adjustments to the theory of Marx.

Therefore, it is not at all necessary that the restoration of the old familiar socialism awaits us in the 21st century. Ideology will not necessarily bear the same name. However, with a high degree of probability, the response to the historical challenge will again be similar to what we have already seen in the 16th century and in subsequent ones.