Free Institutions and Struggle for Freedom in Russian History

Review of Central and East European Law 35 (2010) 7-25

Nicholas S. Timasheff

I. Introduction Stalin is no more. His power seems to have been smoothly transferred to a directorate of five headed by G. Malenkov. Historical experience shows however that collective dictatorships are unstable. Rivalry among the members usually breaks out and, sometimes, this results in the breakdown of the monolithic power structure. But political dislocation is never final; sooner or later, a new crystallization of power must take place. There is no way of predicting what this eventual crystallization will be. But statements about objective possibilities are not out of the question. They must be based on the well known property of the past to impose itself on the present and the future. The range of possibilities concerning Russia’s political future after Stalin’s demise depends on the fact whether, in her past, she has known only despotism and slavish submissiveness, or also free institutions and struggle for freedom. In this country [the U.S.A., FF], the first alternative is commonly taken for granted. This view has been forcefully expressed by General Walter B. Smith.1 The central theme of his book is this: the abject despotism of our day is a reflection of the tyranny under which Russia lived since days immemorial. The contention of this paper is, on the contrary, this: the Russians have known free institutions, have loved freedom and struggled for it. Of course, there has also been plenty of despotism tantamount to the repression of freedom. But tyranny and repression do not cover Russian history. Freedom has not been foreign to it. This contention will be tested on two levels. First, a survey of free institutions in Russia’s millennial history will be offered. Second, a survey of revolutionary movements, upheavals and riots will be made, in com- parison with similar processes in the West. Then, as the present writer hopes, the facts will speak for themselves.

1 W.B. Smith, My Three Years in Moscow, Philadelphia, 1950.

II. The Veche Russia appeared on the historical scene in the ninth century A.D. Until the fifteenth century, only for rare and short periods was she politically united. Most commonly, she was a loose confederation of principalities, all the princes belonging to one dynasty, that of Rurik. They succeeded one another on the thrones according to complicated and often violated rules. One of them, the Grand Prince of Kiev (a counterpart to the High King of Ireland) was considered to be the suzerain, or the supreme leader. But the princes, both the Grand Princes of Kiev and the local ones, were by no means unlimited monarchs. In Kiev, in the capitals of the principalities, even in smaller towns, so-called “by-towns” [Russ. prigoroda, FF], a peculiar institution existed, the veche.2 The closest analogy to it is the town meeting. Reliable information about veches in fifty cities and towns has been preserved. In the town meeting of the capital, all the adult male citizens of the principality were entitled to participate, except unmarried sons living in the households of their fathers. But, of course, mainly the inhabitants of the capital attended; the distances were long, means of transportation poor and, moreover, no advance notice of the meetings was given. The inhabitants of the by-towns had to be satisfied by attending their localveches , to discuss local affairs.The veches of the capitals and of the by-towns prob- ably evolved out of tribal assemblies, analogous to the Germanic [more precisely: Anglo-Saxon, FF] folkmotes; about these assemblies sources yield only scattered information.3 The first reliable information about a genuine veche dates from the year 997 A.D. The politically relevant veches, those of the capitals, assembled ei- ther on the plaza before the prince’s palace, or before the cathedral, or in the market place. Sometimes they were convoked by the prince, but sometimes independently of him, by a group of citizens dissatisfied with his policies. In that case, the prince commonly did not appear; then, the bishop was often asked to preside, while in other cases it was the mayor’s privilege to do so.

2 The history of the veche has been reconstructed by V.I. Sergeevich, Kniaz i veche, 1863. [Sergeevich published Veche i Kniaz’ in 1867 (in Moscow); a reworked version was published as the main part of the second volume in his three-volume Drevnosti russkago prava. The fourth edition (St. Petersburg, 1910) has the latest version (Veche i Kniaz’). FF] Later investigations have been ably summarized by M.A. D’iakonov, Ocherki obshchestvennago i gosudarstvennago stroia Drevnei Rusi, St.Petersburg, (2nd ed.) 1908. In English, there exists a masterful presentation in G. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, New Haven, 1947, ch.7 s.3. The statements in the text are mainly based on that presentation, with additions from D’iakonov and Kovalevsky’s work cited in the following note. 3 M. Kovalevsky, Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia, London, 1891, 133.